Well, let's look at it from an investment perspective. Growing tech stocks trade at 20-50x earnings, but an especially hot or new stock can trade at 100x (I'll use that for Facebook). So for a $15B valuation at 100 P/E, they'd have to make $150 million in profit per year or $3/user. I don't think they're there yet (I think revenues are in that ballpark, not profits), but it's not unreasonable.
Of course 100x is an extremely high valuation multiple for a company based on fundamentals instead of speculation, so if they can't monetize, or if they stop growing, or if attrition goes up, then their multiple goes down and then they might have to make $6, $12, or $24 in profit/user/yr, which I'm pretty sure is unreasonable.
Moral of the story: we're all guessing. If they can monetize, then every doubter is wrong. If they can't, then every doubter says "I told you so."
Comments
Well, let's look at it from an investment perspective. Growing tech stocks trade at 20-50x earnings, but an especially hot or new stock can trade at 100x (I'll use that for Facebook). So for a $15B valuation at 100 P/E, they'd have to make $150 million in profit per year or $3/user. I don't think they're there yet (I think revenues are in that ballpark, not profits), but it's not unreasonable.
Of course 100x is an extremely high valuation multiple for a company based on fundamentals instead of speculation, so if they can't monetize, or if they stop growing, or if attrition goes up, then their multiple goes down and then they might have to make $6, $12, or $24 in profit/user/yr, which I'm pretty sure is unreasonable.
Moral of the story: we're all guessing. If they can monetize, then every doubter is wrong. If they can't, then every doubter says "I told you so."