Layoffs and a Silicon Valley Sell-Off Create Shaky Low-Valued 'Unicorn Zombies' (nbcnews.com) 134
"After years of sky-high valuations, Silicon Valley is engulfed in its worst sell-off since the 2008 stock market crash," reports NBC News. On Twitter, VC David Sacks (a former PayPal executive) even says investor sentiment in Silicon Valley is the worst since the late 1990s dotcom crash.
After a pandemic-fueled boom sent tech names soaring, many of those businesses have seen the worst six months of their lives as publicly traded companies. Peloton, the exercise startup, is emblematic of this ominous reality: Its shares have cratered from a high of $163 at the end of 2020 to about $17.... Firms that had scored headlines in the past 18 months for raising millions of dollars to achieve billion-dollar "unicorn" valuations have announced layoffs. They include the celebrity video-clip company Cameo; the stock market trading app Robinhood; Thrasio, which buys and sells third-party brands on Amazon; and the employment group Workrise.
Some people have begun to use the phrase "zombie unicorns" to refer to highly valued but shaky startups that might need new investors to rescue them.
"A lot of this is about companies that never thought the VC gravy train would slow," Dan Primack, a widely read tech and finance columnist for Axios, wrote this week. The massive markdown is causing some observers to pause and reflect on the current state of tech. The mood has shifted: Our economic environment is less certain, and the ground on which the tech landscape stood is beginning to look, as tech executive and venture capitalist Dan Rose called it in a tweet, like an "abyss."
NBC notes that early-stage tech companies "aren't profitable, relying instead on VC investments to cover expenses while they focus on rapid growth." And tech investor Zach Coelius tells NBC that while there had been an abundance of investors — and low interest rates — our current downturn in consumer demand (and the economy) coincides with an end to that explosion in funding.
"Almost all the major public tech companies missed their numbers, and when that happens, the tide can turn really aggressively."
Some people have begun to use the phrase "zombie unicorns" to refer to highly valued but shaky startups that might need new investors to rescue them.
"A lot of this is about companies that never thought the VC gravy train would slow," Dan Primack, a widely read tech and finance columnist for Axios, wrote this week. The massive markdown is causing some observers to pause and reflect on the current state of tech. The mood has shifted: Our economic environment is less certain, and the ground on which the tech landscape stood is beginning to look, as tech executive and venture capitalist Dan Rose called it in a tweet, like an "abyss."
NBC notes that early-stage tech companies "aren't profitable, relying instead on VC investments to cover expenses while they focus on rapid growth." And tech investor Zach Coelius tells NBC that while there had been an abundance of investors — and low interest rates — our current downturn in consumer demand (and the economy) coincides with an end to that explosion in funding.
"Almost all the major public tech companies missed their numbers, and when that happens, the tide can turn really aggressively."
Peloton? (Score:5, Insightful)
Peloton isn't a tech company, it's an exercise bike company pretending to be a tech company. And their problems have more to do with bad press from killing their customers than from a general downturn in tech.
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Also you could argue that they tried to keep people exercising by making it fun, through gamification. It's a good idea, but yeah, not a billion dollar one.
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People don't bother cancelling these memberships because "sure I'm going to start again next month, for realsies this time"
Gyms also make it VERY difficult to cancel your membership with needless paperwork that must be filled out by hand and sent to a corporate office that will take an extra month to process it while they collect revenue for your trouble, and in-person paperwork gives you another chance to change the customer's mind and resell them on the dream or just subtly shame them into staying, whereas online subscriptions are usually far easier and only take moments with no possibility to resell them.
Re: Peloton? (Score:2)
Talk about hard to cancel, I had a web hosting company that required to send cancel form by fax. I had a credit card company, a swiss one (Swisscards AECS to name them), that took over a year to cancel my account, I even had transaction on my credit card 9 months after cancellation. I spent countless hours in phone, sent letters, ... It's seems easier to cancel your own life than many things.
Re: Peloton? (Score:4, Funny)
Especially in Switzerland, where assisted suicide is legalâ¦
Re: Peloton? (Score:2)
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Also their shoes are the same price as nikes (Score:2)
FWIW the shoes were nothing special -- you could use any cleated shoes you wanted, pretty much.
To add to that, they really weren't that unfairly priced compared to name-brand sneakers. $100 per pair was never particularly shocking for me.
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Sunny Health makes a bike that unofficially works with the peloton app for $500, and they have some lighter duty models with various features removed for less. You can replace the pedals with whatever clip on shoe you like to use, Shimano is good. Lots of support on reddit and other places for these alternatives. And often with small customizations people end up happier with the knock off model than they are with the real thing.
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With home fitness, you can workout more often (Score:5, Insightful)
glad to hear thats a thing. Aside from the guided instructor, its hard to beat $10/mo for planet fitness. I know some people rather work out at home, for a lot of people its a fast track to skip the workout because life happens. Once you walk through the door at the gym, you're already there so might as well get the workout behind you. And if you do end up quitting, you're only out the monthly $10 fee and dont have to try to sell the equipment.
Few gyms are open 24/7 and even then, you have to be dressed and get there. The closest I've ever lived to one is 15 minutes. Last night, I was fucking tired. I wanted to go to bed, but I also didn't want to lose my streak. OK, I'll do a 10 min ride...at 11:30PM. I got the whim at 11:25, I was on the bike at 11:30, I was off by 11:40. So 15 min from inception to completion. It would require 45 min if I still had a gym 15 min away. It wouldn't have been worth it for a 10 min workout. I've been a gym member all of my life until the pandemic hit. I've never gone to the gym at 11:30 PM, even when I was young and had fewer responsibilities.
For many Peloton isn't an either/or. It's a supplement. Few threw away their desktop/laptop when they got an iPad. Being able to have quick workouts during or between meetings or just in weird gaps in schedule is a game-changer for me.
If I was back in the office or had a gym near my house (ours closed down with pandemic because rent is so high), I would probably want both. I want the gym for serious workouts with serious weightlifting equipment and a peloton + app for a quick core workout or ride in gaps in schedule.
I really see connected fitness as a supplement for the gym more than a replacement...similar to an iPad + laptop + phone as most people I know own.
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No. Their problem is that by integrating "tech" into their bikes they got scooped up in the insanity. They had no business being valued at $160.
Their crash has little to do with their own mismanagement. It's just a correction to the stupidly of jumping on a bandwagon, like "Long Island Ice Tea" changing its name to "Long Blockchain Corp" and seeing its shareprice soar without any actual change in business or strategy.
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Peloton is interesting because their market did well during the pandemic, when people didn't want to go out. Now we are seeing high inflation and some countries are looking like they might go into recession, spending on luxuries like connected exercise bike subscriptions are the first things to get cut.
Re: Peloton? (Score:2)
Re: Peloton? (Score:4, Interesting)
That's mostly only true if the company is priced on growth. A good counter example is oil extraction companies. They're setup essentially as a stock that is expected to go to 0 in the long term. When the oil well runs out, the company is bankrupt. In the meantime, investors get fat dividends.
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They're setup essentially as a stock that is expected to go to 0 in the long term.
That's on a very long term. There's an intermediate phase first.
Right now, oil is an energy source because its net energy is positive, that is, you get more energy from extracted oil than you put into the process of extracting it. New technologies have helped keep the energy return over energy invested (EROEI) ratio above 1.0, se we're still at this phase of the process, but only for a few more decades, as at some point EROEI will go down to 1.0.
Then phase 2 begins, at which the remaining oil becomes a mine
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Well, most companies have something like that. Most companies are relatively short lives, or they grow and shrink again. The buggy whip makers never died out completely, you can still buy them. The horse industry still exists, it's just not as huge and is specialized; some for ranches, some for racing. Used to be a big market in television repair, that's gone almost completely (the few remaining are now general repair shops). Vaccuum tubes aren't big anymore, though they're around for specialized uses.
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There are three things to the PTON story.
First is that people rushed into the stock bidding it up like crazy because it seemed like a good pandemic play given people could not go to the gym all that gym membership spending seemed like it just HAD TO go to them.
Second thing was all that simi money. At least in the US the vast vast majority of it went to people who were in fact still working and really did not need. The whole do something fast lets not worry about it being targeted because we have to save the
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Yup, in the same way that Uber and Lyft are cab companies, not tech companies. But don't let them hear you say that. They might ban you from their cabs.
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Re: Peloton? (Score:4, Funny)
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Apple; the only tech company whose logo has a byte missing.
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Well, an apple isn't a plant. An apple tree is a plant.
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Well, an apple isn't a plant. An apple tree is a plant.
your entire comment is based on the distinction between the definition of plant (an organism) versus the seed-bearing structure in flowering plants that is formed from the ovary after flowering.?
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People discovered they had exercise equipment they could not use, and could replace it with a much cheaper device that did the same and di not need to be connected to use
Oh and their support and updates were horrific
Connected is the point and the goal! (Score:2)
People discovered they had exercise equipment they could not use, and could replace it with a much cheaper device that did the same and di not need to be connected to use Oh and their support and updates were horrific
You must have gotten that info 3rd hand. The support and updates on my peloton are nice. I am not sure what you're talking about, but this is the first complaint I've heard.
Also connected fitness is the draw for most. If you don't find leaderboards, challenges, metrics, or instructors motivating or adding anything to the experience, you can just use your exercise bike from the 80s, like my parents still have and no one uses. I've had a normal bike for years. I bought a Peloton. The experience motiv
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There are many exercise bike companies and the only thing that differentiates Peloton from them is the tech added to the exercise bike. How is Peloton not a tech company? Tech is literally their only competitive advantage. One might suggest it's advertising or buzz, but the advertising is selling the tech, and the buzz is due to the tech.
Peloton is a tech company, however lame.
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Peloton is an exercise app company that happens to make a very expensive bike, but you don't actually need their bike to use the app.
Peloton's rotten finance is what is holding it back. They have customers, not a lot of churn, and regular revenue. But they spend money on things outside of their core business, and now don't have any in reserve to weather a storm. Such as a supply chain issues due to world politics nor are they able to deal with the sudden spike in inflation. R.I.P. Peloton
Peloton is as much a tech company as FAANG (Score:2)
Peloton isn't a tech company, it's an exercise bike company pretending to be a tech company. And their problems have more to do with bad press from killing their customers than from a general downturn in tech.
So did you think the iPhone was just a Palm Pilot with a phone on it? The iPhone was revolutionary because they created a cohesive experience with iTunes and the App Store that made the iPhone a greater experience than the sum of it's parts. That's why everyone knows the iPhone, but few remember the Palm Treo. Peloton does something similar. It creates an experience that is much more than just an exercise bike + a tablet. It's why it's a phenomena and not just some device you buy at costco.
You're not
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No, I thought it was an iPod with phone on it.
You mean the App Store that didn't exist when the iPhone was released? Jobs didn't want third party apps spoiling his perfect user experience.
Everyone kno
if you don't know any owners, then it must suck... (Score:2)
Phenomena? I don't know a single person who has one. Get out of your silicon valley bubble once in a while.
You're off by over 3,000 miles. Also, Peloton penetration is actually greater outside the tech industry. It also is a little more popular among women than men. If you really don't know a single Peloton owner, that says more about you than Peloton.
So yes, they are popular. They have great sales. They are a phenomena well outside Silicon Valley. The best analogy I can give is gaming. Most of my non-nerd friends don't care about the PS5 or GTX 3080. However, I would consider gaming a phenomena.
A
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Peloton isn't a tech company, it's an exercise bike company pretending to be a tech company. And their problems have more to do with bad press from killing their customers than from a general downturn in tech.
So did you think the iPhone was just a Palm Pilot with a phone on it?
Nope. Smaller Newton with a phone on it. The Palm was just a smaller Newton with worse handwriting recognition and a black-and-white display.
You're not very familiar with Peloton and probably unfamiliar with the Tech Industry. Look at the FAANG darlings. Peloton more closely resembles Netflix than NodicTrack. They produce content for $45/month that many really enjoy and the sell gadgets.
Netflix arguably isn't a tech company at this point. Its primary industry is content. It is more a media company than a tech company. Folks just still call them a tech company because they started out doing streaming first and added content later instead of the other way around. But they're really no more a tech company than NBC (Peacock), CBS (All Access), etc.
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Most tech companies aren't tech companies really. Having servers and web 2.0 doesn't make one a tech company. Even the major tech companies really only dabble in tech: ie, almost all of Googles profits come from advertising, but it gets enough money that way that it can afford to spend some to dabble in technology. Facebook also only dabbles. Twitter doesn't even do that, Twitter has nothing that makes it a "tech" company in any way.
Valuation (Score:5, Interesting)
A company is valued according to how much someone is willing to pay for a share of it. Basically if you make a company and sucker someone to buy one billionth of it for $1. You can go around claiming your company is worth a billion dollars, nevermind that only one idiot was willing to pay that amount because he is a dumbass. The only negative is that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders think you have a billion dollars in cash and might ask you to pay a huge tax bill and force you to sell a chunk of the company. Except when you go to sell it, not enough people would be willing to buy it at $1 per billionth share.
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Well... no. A company's shares are valued at what a bunch of people think someone will be willing to pay for it. Big difference.
Re: Valuation (Score:3)
But to many people the value of the company means how much the company can be sold for cash. Like, the Mona Lisa is worth 100 million dollars because there are at least two people who will pay 99 million for it. But with a company, the value of the company can be lost if the major shareholders dump their shares. If Elon has to give up his shares of Tesla, people will no longer have faith in the company because without Elonâ(TM)s determination, understanding of automotive engineering management, and bus
Re: Valuation (Score:2)
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No, not to many. To all of them. The value of shares is their resale value. Or, more precisely, what people think they will be able to sell them. If a company makes zero profit but if everyone expects that company to be swallowed by Facebook for a billion dollars, those shares will represent that billion dollars Facebook will pay for it, not its current profit.
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Well... no. A company's shares are valued at what a bunch of people think someone will be willing to pay for it. Big difference.
I think your corrections is intrinsically flawed. While valuation is created by groups of people acting in what they perceive to be their own interest, each person is acting individually. So the value is based on what someone thinks of the valuation (or a group of someones) not based on what a group of people agree the valuation should be. In fact, creating valuation by agreement is against the law as it is considered a form of financial fraud.
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This is something that bothers me a lot. It's like the demonization of crypto: There are several "fronts" on why this happens. The two most important ones are: "crypto will destroy the environment" and "crypto is a scam and it allows people to launder money". Let's focus on this last one and compare it to "startups".
Why aren't "unicorns" and "rapid growth startups" demonized the same way? These companies are all scams, "get rich fast". None of them make money, and a majority of them don't even pay a salary
Re:Valuation (Score:4, Insightful)
Because "crypto" targets vulnerable people. And if that doesn't explain it enough, I don't know what to tell you.
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And who do you think buys the "pump and dump" stock from the startups I mentioned ealier?
People "in the know" don't touch that. Average Joe playing r/wallstreetbets on Robinhood is just as "vulnerable" as people who buy crypto.
In fact, it's probably the same people.
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You you're saying people shouldn't shit on crypto because the startup-VC cycle is also bad? That's a pretty unconvincing argument.
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Plus that would make most crypto companies, many of which are very VC-oriented, pretty much the Antichrist.
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I was VERY clear:
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And by vulnerable people you mean idiots, right?
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None of them make money
No. Some of the ones you focus on don't make money. The reality is these companies are elevated to unicorn status precisely because someone thinks they have a transformational product/service with a lot of potential to make money.
They also have an idea for generating value (be that producing something people buy, or sucking up data to on-sell to others / advertisers). That makes them very different to crytpo.
Unfortunately crypto tends to attract FOMO investors who think they can get rich of something they h
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a majority of them don't even pay a salary to the employees
That sounds made up. Are there really that many people who 1) are so wealthy they can go months or years without income and 2) want to work for someone else in hopes that stock options will become valuable?
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> Basically if you make a company and sucker someone to buy one billionth of it for $1
It takes a bit more than that, but yes, that's about the size of it. You need to find one sucker who'll pay a bit over what you're really worth, then find another who looks at the first a something of a "reference" and then buys in at a higher price still. Better still, tell everyone you're using blockchain and then the first sucker will pay much higher because they think you're going to make them billions.
I find this v
Re:Valuation (Score:5, Insightful)
The only negative is that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders think you have a billion dollars in cash and might ask you to pay a huge tax bill and force you to sell a chunk of the company.
Citation? I can't remember ever hearing Warren or Sanders claiming we should tax companies based on perception of value.
Except when you go to sell it, not enough people would be willing to buy it at $1 per billionth share.
Look the share market doesn't actually work like that. The valuation isn't decided based on a single transaction because basically no company listed on the stock market has such low trading volume that a single transaction determines the value (those companies get de-listed). There's a reason why if you actually look at a stock on a trading platform you're presented with a buy/sell spread rather than the single number which is oft quoted in the news.
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Really? The above poster gave you almost the title of a bunch of news articles and you ask for a citation?
- https://www.cnbc.com/2019/09/2... [cnbc.com]
- https://reason.com/2021/03/25/... [reason.com]
- https://www.foxbusiness.com/po... [foxbusiness.com]
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Those links are to scare stories about how Bernie wants to tax the ultra-wealthy. He wants a 2% yearly levy on hoarded wealth over 50 million. Cry me a river over that why don't you.
None of those articles involve general taxation on stocks you are holding and haven't sold, if you are a normal, maybe even what I would consider very wealthy person. Got 10 mil in stocks and you're worth 20 mil on paper? Then there' nothing at all like OP was claiming.
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Did they stop providing access to google at the loony bin? Is that it? Here are some references.. literally the top links in google: https://www.cnn.com/2021/10/25... [cnn.com] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/1... [nytimes.com] https://www.businessinsider.co... [businessinsider.com]
"The plan would establish a 20% minimum tax rate on households worth $100 million or more and would expand the definition of taxable income to include the accruing value of unsold investments like stocks or bonds, otherwise known as unrealized capital gains. Currently, gains on
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Now you are talking about even wealthier mega-rich...taxes on over 100milion? WHO CARES? None of that generally applies. Next you'll find something where they plan to tax folks even heavier who have hoarded over 500 million.
I think it's perfectly fair to tax the hoarded wealth of the mega rich, and you have to value it somehow in order to calculate tax, so doing it base on what the market says it's worth when taxes are due seems fair. Don't like it? Give the money to charity, get yourself down under 50 mil
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You don't think the tax will trickle down to the average person? You are suggesting that people who start companies, would have to sell their shares in that startup and lose control of it when their ownership stake's value goes over 50 million? That is really stupid. That would mean the startup loses its founders, and control transfers to investors who have no idea of how to run the startup or implement the vision. If Elon Musk had to give up a large part of SpaceX or Tesla in its early stages those compani
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I am not sure what you are trying to push. The original post says the only way a super high valuation matters is if some chuckleheads start taxing it like it was real and gives you both examples of the chuckleheads that have proposed it and a dollar range of $1B (although there are calls for lower amounts). The example is a bit contrived but gets the point across.
First response is the ubiquitous 'citation needed' which instead of pulling out Let-Me-Google-That-For-You I actually answered, because I was feel
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If you have 10 mil and stocks, but have other assets worth another 10 mil, was what I was suggesting. The reason I said that was because someone with 10 mil sitting unmoving in stocks is probably worth, on paper, more than just that 10 mil.
Re:Valuation (Score:5, Interesting)
"Citation? I can't remember ever hearing Warren or Sanders claiming we should tax companies based on perception of value."
Not corporations, but people. Their wealth tax proposal would tax people on the theoretical value of their portfolios at the end of the year. Whether you could actually sell the stocks (or whatever) for that price in March to pay the tax bill due in April is not relevant to them .
Actually it would be worse than that. You would have to guess what the EOY value is going to be and sell in December so that you would have the money to pay the estimated taxes due on January 15. Add to that the usual fun with dividends and capital gains distributions being paid out over the week before Christmas, and that you don't know what the qualified dividends are until February, and taxes would be really interesting.
My taxes have gotten a lot more complicated since I retired. Schedule AI of Form 2210 is now my friend since 2/3 of my annual income shows up in the last half of December. The IRS wants me to crystal ball my income for the entire year and send precisely 1/4 of it every quarter. As that is not happening, then Schedule AI is necessary unless I want to pay penalties and interest, which I do not.
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If you tell everyone an incorrect valuation, that's on you, not Bernie Sanders. Might as well blame Bernie for my failed new years resolution to lose weight while we're at it.
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The only negative is that Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders think you have a billion dollars in cash and might ask you to pay a huge tax bill and force you to sell a chunk of the company
Why is that a negative? If they have to pay a token tax on the market valuation, the companies will try to rein in their creative accounting and over the top aggressive pimping of their stock.
A small tax on the valuation, small enough not to hurt the realistically valued companies and large enough to rein in the pumping is actually a good idea. Not a tax that goes into the general govt revenues, but more like a fees that goes into SEC enforcement wing to go after pump and dump, short and FUD operations. T
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Bread Line Bernie and Pocahantas...
Spot the Trump supporter...
(....and remind them that Trump lost - to Joe Biden)
Sounds like one of those The Asylum movies (Score:4, Funny)
Imaging something like zombie unicorns terrorizing Silicon Valley and eating all the pretty chicks overthere.
This has a potential for at least a 2.5 rating on IMDB.
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I think I found the title song [youtube.com].
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Like Bill Gates? [nypost.com]
That's quite easy to explain (Score:5, Insightful)
The value of such startups is basically in what people think they will be worth to whatever company will eventually gobble it up. When the usual suspects (i.e. established new market bigwigs) make ample profit and need somewhere to sink that (read: are able and willing to funnel that profit into buying out startups), startup values go up because investors think and hope that someone is going to buy their shares at inflated values.
Folks, please get with the times. The value of a share has ZERO to do with what the company does. All that matters is what investors think someone else will be paying for it in the near future.
If you're in a rece... whoops, sorry, almost said the bad word, *clears throat* if the economy is on a subpar performance course and big players are not on a shopping spree, those startups lose value faster than pumpkins after Halloween.
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The value of a share has ZERO to do with what the company does. All that matters is what investors think someone else will be paying for it in the near future.
Despite your assertion that all investors are morons who pick stocks based on throwing darts at a dart board these two are in reality linked. Peloton didn't skyrocket because people thought exercise equipment was cool, they did so due to a business model of fucking over consumers with a subscription service that investors thought may actually work.
It didn't. That doesn't mean the share price had nothing to do with what the company does.
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Sorry if it came across like "throwing darts", what I mean is that what matters when it comes to stock investment is less what a company produces (or pretends to produce) but rather what the expectation towards its future fate is. And yes, Peloton didn't skyrocket because investors cared about the product. They cared about the prospected revenue and the chance of the company being bought out by one of the big players.
When it became obvious that nobody is going to buy them, their stock hit rock bottom.
This i
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Ok, either I am not capable of expressing what I want to convey in a way you understand or something else is amiss, you maybe point out where you think I contradicted myself so I can sort it out for you?
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Total nonsense. While the price of a share is superficially determined by market forces, at a very minimum it has the value of the company's assets minus debts, because that's the payout shareholders would get if the company liquidated itself.
It's about time (Score:4, Insightful)
We're decades overdue on interest rate increases. Stop printing and giving away money. Everything is over-valued -- real estate, labor, companies, you name it -- and there's way too much cash around. These BS "unicorn" tech companies that don't actually produce or provide anything of value will necessarily turn to dust and blow away once money isn't free anymore and VCs pull the plug.
Companies that produce actual goods and services for which there is demand will always thrive, provided they're run properly -- even in down economic cycles. The rest is a shell game, a scam, or layers on top of what's already there -- a middleman trying to carve out a fraction of a percent.
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" Everything is over-valued"
If everything is overvalued, then nothing is overvalued.
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The problem is that 'there's way too much cash around', but only in certain circles. The mechanism used to 'stimulus' the economy has been really only accessible to those that can do things like get near-zero interest loans secured by big stacks of pledged stocks and such. Wages haven't increased accordingly. So assets like real estate are screwed up because the rich people need somewhere to stick their cash and are competing with people that want to just buy a house to live in, and one class of those folk
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And it's because we don't value things that have true value. That's why land is being bought up by billionaires, it's cheap and once all the farmable land in the US is owned by them, up go food prices as well.
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It's hard to see where labor is overvalued. Wages have been stagnant compared to the increases we've been seeing in productivity and profits for decades. Hell, unemployment is high but you can't find enough people to properly staff a fast food joint where I live. I can hit up most any sit down restaurant in my area and be eating my meal faster than if I tried a drive through.
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We're decades overdue on interest rate increases. Stop printing and giving away money.
They can't. The system as it stands cannot be 'fixed' by just raising rates. The capitalist system has become dependent on continuous subsidies for the middle class which govt have chosen to do through asset price inflation (aka wealth effect).
If you stop this then large swathes of the population cannot produce enough useful output to buy (trade) for the things they need. The economy would spiral into a depression.
There is no easy way out of this. We probably need to massively redistribute capital ownership
Re: It's about time (Score:3)
This "nothing of value" digital-only product line has killed off: Everything ever printed on paper, nearly all editorial control, most human brokering of services, a large swatch of entertainment, advertising, sales, distrobution, gaming, group organization, ...
Companies with huge burn rates (Score:3)
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What the hell could Uber be burning through other than lawyer cash?
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What the hell could Uber be burning through other than lawyer cash?
Self driving cars [businessinsider.com].
seems like they finally sold that part of the company off last year though...
Interest rates (Score:2)
Re: Interest rates (Score:2)
Not tech (Score:3)
These are all fucking marketing bollocks companies, not tech.
This is what happens when capital dries up (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
It also impacts anyone's retirement funds that didn't get shuffled off to safety in time.
Re: (Score:2)
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But maybe if someone is 50 or so, it'd be normal to be in that boat (well equity funds, not BTC)
get ready for a pump and dump. (Score:2)
Thrasio? (Score:2)
Just going by the description:
Thrasio, which buys and sells third-party brands on Amazon
Selling stuff you don't make nor are the original vendor for on a platform you don't control is some hard core middle-manning. I would be skeptical of the robustness of that business.
Re: (Score:2)
Selling stuff you don't make nor are the original vendor for on a platform you don't control is some hard core middle-manning. I would be skeptical of the robustness of that business.
They don't do what you describe. They are buying up 3rd party amazon retailers and aggregating them.
This is a mind boggling comment. I think I just died a little inside.
Amazon retailers generally do not manufacture their own goods. and they do not control the amazon platform.
So based on what you said, and based on what he said, they do EXACTLY what the FP said. Aggregating third party retailers is nuts. If I was a third party retailer that was just running a drop ship business out of my garage I'd take their money! In a heartbeat! Gets me out from under a bunch of risk, returns the total cash (and goodwill) in the company and allows me to invest in something less risky. Like lottery tickets! (Amazon has a bad habit of screwing over the third party retailers - at this point it's almost a tradition)
Dotcom Redux. (Score:2)
No interest rate, too much money, desperate attempts to get some sort of ROI, and you have all these startups that have no other function than to be sold to anyone who thinks they can sell it to anyone who thinks they can....
It's like NFTs but for companies :P
Remember the Budwiser joke? (Score:3)
Dot-com crash was early 00s (Score:3)
Pedantic, but, “the late 1990s dotcom crash” didn’t happen in the late 1990s. I was there, Gandalf The dot-com boom survived through the quadruple digit calendar year flip (LNX set an IPO record in December 1999; I had some code in the Linux kernel and so I got to participate :)). https://www.wired.com/1999/12/va-linux-sets-ipo-record/
The bubble started to burst immediately after peaking in March 2000: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble#Bursting_of_the_bubble
So dot-com v2.0 (Score:2)
I have a feeling that the dot-com era boom and bust will turn out to be an inevitable scenario that repeats itself every couple of decades or so from here forward.
We set the stage for the tech startup business to become an entity that generates huge stock price valuations and occasionally really DOES become an integral part of modern society - all while not producing a physical good at all, and while spending other people's money to grow as rapidly as possible.
This really wasn't possible in past history, bu
back to the office for you!!! (Score:2)
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