I remember when GOOG went public in that Dutch Auction style IPO. I thought it was overvalued over the years, but they kept taking market share, opening new markets, and executing.
One thing we could probably be sure of, is the kings of tech today will not be so 10-years down the road. From the days of the Nifty Fifty to the internet bubble with its Four Horsemen of the 1990's (Dell, Cisco, Microsoft, INTC) or the Four Horsemen of 2000 (Cisco, Oracle, Sun Microsystems, and EMC). The leaders don't stay on top forever, although Oracle has remained fairly relevant through acquisitions.
Ten years from now we'll have our new Four Horsemen. You could make a pretty good case the current four are AAPL, GOOG, ORCL, and AMZN. MSFT today = IBM in 1995, IMO.
One thing's for sure, if your business depends upon teenagers and twentysomethings using your product, expect your business to be as fickle as the folks consuming your product. This is a generation brought up on video games, multi-tasking, and trying and adopting the new, cool things.
I believe more in the viability of a site like Ashley Madison than Zynga. One's got about 4,000 years of data supporting the business case, while the other has about 4 years.
Full disclosure: I have never gone on Ashley Madison's site, nor am I certain I have spelled it correctly. Frankly, I think sex robots are going to be putting Ashley Madison, escort services, and prostitutes out of business in the future anyway. Maybe a new sex robot company will be one of the new Four Whoreseman of the 2020's? |
