It's just marketing...how many people do you know that keep a single Benjamin laying around much less 10+? The fact is that most of what everyone uses as money is "inside money" that banks conjure up and charge interest on in perpetuity.
The world quickly devolves when the ROC on this benchmark goes flat and the social world heads for chaos when it goes negative.
"I will assume that Twitter's revenues will reach $11.5 billion in 2023. That will be more than a twenty fold increase in revenues and translate into a revenue growth rate of 55% for the next 5 years, scaling down to stable growth (of 2.7%) in year 11."
"Why not use your knowledge of the future to play the stock markets? We could make trillions."
"Why make a trillion when we could make... billions?"
My main issue with that number is the assumption that Twitter will still be around or significant by 2023. If the past 10 years are any indication, the internet user-base is fickle and moves around a lot. There really isn't enough data-points from the past 10 years to reliably predict trends for the next 10 years, unless you want to say that there will be tons of carcasses and has-beens.
You could have said the same thing about Google during their IPO, and they are doing just fine.
Not to say you don't have a point, but I think the point you are making is less to be reflected in the revenue number but in the probability of the company surviving, which he put's at 100% in his assumptions... that does sound rich to me!
They are not really the same thing. We'll always need search, and unless Google falls behind, we'll keep using Google if their search results are the best. Or unless everyone decides en mass that they can live with less good results, if the new ones offers 10x more privacy, and in a world where NSA/governments run rampant with the data collection and abuse it. Right now that's pretty much the only thing I could see Google dying from. That and laziness, but that's less likely to happen.
Communications and social platform, while they can have some pretty strong network effects, are not as important, even if they keep improving them,. A new generation of users might switch from Facebook to Snapchat, and it's irrelevant if Facebook adds the same kind of features. A new generation of users won't switch from Google to Bing, or something else, unless, as I said, Google stops providing the best results.
Whatsapp is used by more than 300 million users right now, more than Twitter. Do you think Whatsapp will still be as relevant 10 years down the road? The chances are pretty small, I think.
Google has proven itself as a company capable of, and prepared to move into new markets and to diversify its portfolio of services. Twitter, on the other hand, has only diversified around the 140 character concept.
In my mind, it is diversification that allows a tech company to stay afloat when new entrants can have such a rapid impact on the market.
It is in no way conceivable to me that the 'trendy' means to communicate will still be in 140 character morsels 10 years from now.
In order to value the company he MUST assume something. If you ever buy or sell a stock then you, too, are implicitly valuing future revenues, but perhaps you do so blindly. Do not ridicule the author for being explicit and transparent with his assumptions.
The day you recognize that prices are tethered to perceptions and driven by emotion, it will be a new beginning. I have deep experience in capital markets, so feel free to quiz me on anything in this space. I am here to help as I am able.
Some people owe me up-votes for all those down-votes they gave me six+ months ago when I stated one must assume a zero privacy environment when engaging technology today.
I'm just happy I knew what the Internet was like before mosaic and the www emerged. It seems so quaint now.
Edit - How long until people ditch their Black Amex cards and go back to cash for some privacy restored? A short decade ago it wasn't so uncommon to carry a few bucks. How many people really want banks and the government knowing all of their consumption habits in addition to the timing of their consumption?
All in the name of fraud prevention! Just carry a few bucks and no worries again!
Fact 2: State and municipal governments have subsidized borrowing costs via the federal tax exemption. I don't know where you live, but are your state and local governments borrowers? What about the road money from the Federal Government?
Well, you will discover in due time what all of this nets out to and no one will enjoy it. The forces of deflation are far mightier than the forces of inflation for inflation requires persistent and exponentially increasing consumption, fueled by net-borrowing of the combined public and private worlds.
As it turns out, the zombie apocalypse isn't triggered by an infectious disease or rapidly mutating virus. Instead, it's capital destruction via chaining debt defaults.
LinkedIn is great if you need more emails in your inbox to boost your self-importance quotient, but I haven't heard of anyone in my sphere that was discovered and hired due to LI.
It seems all of the technology companies are givin their best effort to invading privacy and undermining trust on a societal level. There will be lasting consequences for these behaviors.
really depends on your job profile. it is a big factor in consulting and similar jobs. very job mobile crowd, hard to keep track where they are right now - linkedin makes it easy.
self updating rolodex for people that change employers frequently.
