Not a good year for investors in newly public tech companies... of big IPOs in the past year, Zynga is down 70% from the offering price, Facebook is down 30%, and Groupon is down 55%. Seems like the investing public screwed up and massively overpaid VCs/founders for the shares, by a total of about six billion dollars.
Except the VCs and to a lesser extent the Tech media, who are supposed to be in the know, were actively promoting this junk as revolutionary.
Once again, Joe Public and his retirement get the short end of the stick. Manufacturing money is a dirty business. I wonder if we'll ever look at Silicon Valley VCs in the same light as we do Wall Street bankers?
To be fair, there's a constant din of people predicting doom for almost any company that has success. And for several years, the naysayers have generally been wrong (like, billions of dollars wrong) about FB & Zynga. So, how do we tell the real predictions from the bogus ones?
It's really the social bubble and consumer tech IPOs that are getting crushed, and those were always pretty obviously scams.
Guidewire is up over 80% even after the recent pullback, because it has a real business model and steady, recurring income. It'll probably get beaten down more by the lock up expiration over the next month or so, but I'd bet dollars to donuts it doesn't drop anywhere close to its IPO pricing.
Good point; I had forgotten about them, and they're big enough to change the total returns significantly for institutional investors who were routinely buying into the entire sector (as opposed to those who got unlucky in only picking Facebook).
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Not a good year for investors in newly public tech companies... of big IPOs in the past year, Zynga is down 70% from the offering price, Facebook is down 30%, and Groupon is down 55%. Seems like the investing public screwed up and massively overpaid VCs/founders for the shares, by a total of about six billion dollars.
I think just as interesting, it was almost entirely predicted by people who are heavily in the tech industry.
The market writ large ignored the input from those in the know and is now acting surprised -- it befuddles the imagination.
Except the VCs and to a lesser extent the Tech media, who are supposed to be in the know, were actively promoting this junk as revolutionary.
Once again, Joe Public and his retirement get the short end of the stick. Manufacturing money is a dirty business. I wonder if we'll ever look at Silicon Valley VCs in the same light as we do Wall Street bankers?
To be fair, there's a constant din of people predicting doom for almost any company that has success. And for several years, the naysayers have generally been wrong (like, billions of dollars wrong) about FB & Zynga. So, how do we tell the real predictions from the bogus ones?
Is anyone making a lot shorting these companies?
It's really the social bubble and consumer tech IPOs that are getting crushed, and those were always pretty obviously scams.
Guidewire is up over 80% even after the recent pullback, because it has a real business model and steady, recurring income. It'll probably get beaten down more by the lock up expiration over the next month or so, but I'd bet dollars to donuts it doesn't drop anywhere close to its IPO pricing.
You forgot LinkedIn which is still up 40% over its IPO.
Good point; I had forgotten about them, and they're big enough to change the total returns significantly for institutional investors who were routinely buying into the entire sector (as opposed to those who got unlucky in only picking Facebook).
Why not? I'd say this is an excellent year for bearish investors.