i wont argue the stupidity of paying 19b on whatsapp, but at least the tangibles are clear - 400million active users, fast growing, straight path with facebook integration. What is oculus? 2billion for a single beta hardware, it has no eco system, no active users, no vendor software support (less than handful of games supports it), no clear path to facebook integration, no revenue projections. He paid 2 billion for a piece of cool hardware that's still in development, that's it. There will be tons of competition if this ever takes off. Maybe zuckerberg has some master vision, but i dont see it as practical to strap ths on and have virtual remote meetings as he suggested, on the other end you need multiple cameras to sync and translate. The tech is just not there. The only real application for this is virtual reality gaming, with mmorpg being the holy grail. Getting there is years away and muddy/
Do you remember when I posted that 71ish was at a top within 1dollar, and you found it nonsense and even insulted me? It was indeed a top, and was nailed within cents. The market did not care about that you thought. The thread and my posts are: It is in this thread: http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?t=282260&highlight=cramer
It is interesting to read what people were thinking and saying when the stock was at a top. Here a link to the thread: http://elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?t=282260&highlight=cramer
Berkshire Hathaway did not start and stay as a single product company, and if ZB were buying non-tech companies that he didnt understand you might be right. Zb might be overpaying - but then so are all the folks who bought Facebook shares right ? ..... He might also simply be trying to diversify into anything and everything....while he can with a fingers crossed mindset, realizing FB is not going to last. If you believe most businesses fail or their original business becomes secondary and that the survivors are simply survivors then it makes sense.....after that you can choose to be a shareholder or not. I am not a shareholder and I dont really care for FB - just thought I would share a reason as opposed to 'wtf is ZB doing? the idiot'.
In a year the whatsapp traffic will be 30% lower. My guess is that Sandberg won't break out the revs and metrics on whatsapp in the quarterlies in a year. The music eventually stops. FB will trade at $10 (split adjusted) in the next 5Y. WCOM needed purchase-accounting and goodwill to securitize perception. FB is worse in a sense, as he's (the fool Zuckerberg) only buying perception and no operating assets. Even if you overpay for a network switch it still routes traffic. It's still fraud when it's a gross dereliction as a fiduciary (Whatsapp and Oculus acq.). The biggest bubble in modern history has already popped.
Notice that when it was at the top they were bullish, and when they became bearish yesterday it went up today! It did the exact opposite what they thought it would do.