

Ask HN: Is $1.86 billion in revenue enough to keep Facebook viable? - ericmsimons

This seems like a really low number considering they have 500M "customers". I assume they're making a bit more than $2/person on the site (profit)...how can they possibly be worth $50 Billion?!
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lazylazylazy
Speculation on the future. They have more data on you than anyone has had,
ever. And, they are attracting the smartest people on earth. With those two
things combined, they are going to be able to do a lot more than display Ads
based on your listed interests and relationship status.

Think: modeling a marketing scheme against FB's data because they understand
the idiosyncratic specifics of the demographic you are trying to hit, thus
telling you with p<.01 whether or not it will be profitable.

That, and government contracts are profitable.

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deafcheese
What you're describing reminds me of a company I stumbled on a while ago -
Recorded Future.

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codelust
Without knowing the actual details of their financials, it is always going to
be blind speculation.

Also, 'viable' would mean different things in different contexts. I think it
is certainly viable for the current investors to exit with a good return on
their investment if the company goes public.

For the company itself, it can be a different story and we need more
information to comment on that.

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il
Their users are not their customers, their advertisers are. Considering the
low conversion rates of Facebook traffic, that seems just right.

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Zakuzaa
Non-Paying Users = Product

Advertisers = Customers

Their valuation is based on potential, not just the current revenues.

