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Comment by drusenko | Hacker News Reader

> - How is GitHub worth less than Pinterest?

The fact that the top two comments are saying this is a sure sign we are progressing into a full-fledged bubble.

See George Zachary's interview: http://techcrunch.com/2012/05/17/in-the-studio-crvs-george-z... -- it sure seems like we are entering "Stage 2" (check out the video, not the article)

When we start discussing what we feel one company is worth based entirely off of the valuation of another, unrelated, presumably inflated valuation, it's the beginning of the end.

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It's not a bubble 'til my mom owns pinterest stock. Then the end is near.

My mom is a software engineer, so you're saying if she buys a tech stock the end is near?

No, he referred specifically to his own mother.

Please write a post about it when that happens and link it from HN.

If there's a bubble, and it's related to the Facebook IPO, then why did Facebook lose 11% of its value on Monday?

Because the bubble is already over. The Facebook IPO marks the zenith of this relatively modest bubble period.

Ditto for Groupon, Zynga, Pandora and the like having the insane valuations that they did, while generating zero profit - their valuations have imploded massively. Or a company like HomeAway, that was sporting a $4 billion market cap, and a 600 pe ratio; or LinkedIn with its 1,000 or so pe ratio. The bubble has already exploded for companies like Netflix, whose valuation has collapsed back to earth. A few more like CRM are temporarily defying gravity.

Public companies seem to be coming back to earth, but I'm not sure that's the case for private companies. The valuations there seem to be just getting more and more outlandish.

On the other hand, if it's all VCs and funds of funds losing silly-money, then no harm no foul, I suppose.

The effects always ripple, even from far away private financial sectors.

The problem will occur once the JOBS Act kicks in and anyone can lose their money. That's when the bubble will really pop.

You do know that Groupon and Zynga have been making profits right ?

That's news to me.

For their last quarter (NY Times): "Zynga said its net loss was $85.4 million, or 12 cents a share, in the most recent three months."

Groupon has lost a lot of money the last four quarters. Their latest quarter could best be described as break-even, and negative with option expenses.

Reuters: "Groupon reported first-quarter pro-forma net income, which excludes option expenses, of 2 cents per share, versus a net loss of 41 cents a share, a year earlier."

No doubt the right direction. However, a company that's break even, with $2.x billion in annual sales, is not worth $8 billion. It's a lot better than the $20x billion they were formerly worth of course.

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