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Google went public in 2004 at ~200x earnings and is up 457% since then.

Apple went public in 1980 at ~100x earnings and is up over 15,000% since then.

I'm not saying that Facebook is Google or Apple, but there's a lot more to analyzing a company than looking at P/E and calling it a day.

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Google's revenue growth for the year prior to IPO (2003) was 234%. Facebook's was 88%. Sorry, but Google was a massively better business.

Doesn't that just support the point that looking at P/E alone is useless?

No, that supports the point that looking at P/E alone is not enough. Searching for a spouse? Maybe you should not only look at her/his diplomas or music tastes alone.

I think that's exactly what people are basing their bets on... that Facebook just hasn't figured out a way to monetize properly, but that it will.

That's a really freaking huge "what if". Facebook is not exactly a young company, founded 8 years ago. They've been trying to find a killer business model for many years. I wonder what makes people believe they will find one.

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