It's been <20y since YouTube was acquired for $1B, which felt like an imaginary valuation at the time, but it was for a company that actually had traction with users.
Inflation-adjusted, this acquisition is worth 4x that for… vibes from a guy who led a famous team a long time ago?
Money is real. Privately held company valuations are not. This is an all-stock deal, so what it's "worth" is entirely in the eye of the beholder. Its value rises and falls based on how long the hype train can keep running, or how much they can offload to Mayasoshi Son and Arab Gulf sovereign funds.
Tesla at a PE in the neighborhood of 200 also isn’t real - public valuations are insane as well. The US economic system is completely unhinged from reality.
> Its value rises and falls based on how long the hype train can keep running
Exactly - money is hype. Hype is money. Which goes into the foundation of money to begin with: confidence and faith. And the levers of power which move that confidence and faith are decreasing in number and increasing in length/leverage.
Sure, but is that relevant? I'm not sure people below the poverty line are acquiring SV companies.
In this case as I understand it, no money is being paid - it's a stock deal. For stock that isn't yet publicly trading, thus 'priced' pretty speculatively. So it is pretty abstract, and unreal.
Inflation-adjusted, this acquisition is worth 4x that for… vibes from a guy who led a famous team a long time ago?