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Comment by freehunter | Hacker News Reader

At least it's an extra data point to show we're not in a startup bubble. If we were, these stocks would be skyrocketing no matter how bad the company was doing.

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In fact, how bad they are doing would be an asset-- "We're running as big a loss as we can so we can grow as fast as we can!" -- I think Amazon is still using that line. (though they are growing fast.)

They also are not running a loss.

True, they are not, but I recently came across this rather stunning plot:

http://www.mondaynote.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Amazon-...

Does this look like a hugely profitable company to you?

I don't think a graph that shows what an income statement of a high growth company always looks like should be considered "stunning".

[Apple will be an exception here, but they are a very rare case, almost every other growth company looks like Amazon].

They're not operating at a loss, so I'm not sure how they're using that line.

I totally see your point (and agree) but there's an important distinction to make in Amazon's case, because there's a big difference between aggressively re-investing your profits into growth and aggressively burning other people's money to grow.

the fact that all these social media stocks are declining is PROOF that we've been in a bubble, and now that bubble is deflating.

Facebook and GroupOn are too small a sample size to draw this conclusion.

Have you accounted for general market trends? Seasonal cycles? Comparisons to other IPOs? Contrast with other types of companies that aren't part of your perceived bubble?

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