As Facebook stock makes another record high (in agreement with my predictions) Facebook is now a $200 billion company, on its way to being worth a trillion by the end of the decade.
The left, including the Robert Shiller, sees everything as a bubble or crisis waiting to happen, such as comparing Facebook to Myspace, even though for years they have been proven wrong. Like Google, Facebook is far, far past its fad stage. Teens who get bored with Facebook go instagram, which is also owned by Facebook.
A common retort is that it costs very little money to start a social networking website or an app, and this is often true, but as failed Microsoft, Google, an Facebook competitors can tell you, gaining traction in a saturated market is exceedingly difficult. What ever happened to the Facebook competitor, Ello? After the initial burst of excitement and phoney signups, it already fizzled. The risk of being supplanted by the next big thing is there, but smaller than many think. Look at Microsoft. In the 80’s and 90’s, I imagine coding an operating system was less expensive than building an oil rig, yet many more oil companies have failed than Microsofts.
Facebook should buy Snapchat. After correctly predicting Snapchat would be worth $10 billion, I predict Snapchat will be worth $30-40 billion within the next two years and go public at a valuation of $100 billion or more if no one buys it out. After Snapchat, there are no obvious competitors to Facebook.
Silicon Valley’s billion dollar start-up failures
Another article long on doom and gloom hype and short on evidence. It’s indisputable that small businesses have a high failure rate.
Whether it’s Twitter, Uber, Pinterest, Snapchat, Facebook, Air B&B, all of these hugely valued web 2.0 companies have proven resistant to being fads and keep growing in terms of traffic, revenue, and valuations. It’s not like the early 2000’s when you had many big failures. With the possible exception of Zynga, there have been no notable instances of multi-billion dollar web 2.0 companies failing. Whether it’s the stock market crashing or web 2.0 being a bubble, the crisis seeking left in their pursuit of failure come up empty handed yet again.