<story><title>Peter Thiel Sells Majority Of His Facebook Shares In Deal Planned Pre-IPO</title><url>http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/20/peter-thiel-sells-majority-of-his-facebook-shares/</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>cfront</author><text>Is this some sort of extreme cognitive dissonance?&lt;p&gt;Why can&apos;t people just accept that Facebook is a fad?&lt;p&gt;It does not mean the world is going to end.  It&apos;s a fad, not a solid company.  We went through this before 12 years ago.  Eventually the market figures it out.  Move on.  That&apos;s what Thiel is doing.&lt;p&gt;More fads are around the corner.  Investors will keep falling for the same old tricks.&lt;p&gt;Gates and Ellison are very poor comparisons.  Their software was not web-based (=ad-based), their main market was the enterprise and they went to great lengths to create long-term customer lock-in.  They began in a different era, and are nothing like Facebook, which is a photo-sharing website that relies on display ads and game-playing &quot;whales&quot; to make money.</text></item><item><author>qq66</author><text>Would you expect him to do anything else? Invert the question: if you had $500 million cash, would you spend it all on Facebook stock? Or Google stock? Or any one stock?&lt;p&gt;Even for company insiders who really believe in the future of their company, it isn&apos;t prudent to hold more than a small fraction of a billion-dollar fortune in one stock, from a purely rational perspective. Of course, the public expects irrationally enthusiastic behavior from founders, which is the only thing that leads to the gigantic fortunes amassed by the Gates/Ellisons of the world.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>mikeryan</author><text>&lt;i&gt;It&apos;s fad, not a solid company.&lt;/i&gt;&lt;p&gt;I&apos;m pretty bearish on Facebook&apos;s stock, but there&apos;s nothing here to indicate its just a fad. This is a company with over a billion dollars in revenues per quarter with a pretty consistent 15-25% profit margin.&lt;p&gt;Is it the next Google? Its looking more and more like its not, but that doesn&apos;t mean its going to be the next Yahoo! either.</text></comment>
<story><title>Peter Thiel Sells Majority Of His Facebook Shares In Deal Planned Pre-IPO</title><url>http://techcrunch.com/2012/08/20/peter-thiel-sells-majority-of-his-facebook-shares/</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>cfront</author><text>Is this some sort of extreme cognitive dissonance?&lt;p&gt;Why can&apos;t people just accept that Facebook is a fad?&lt;p&gt;It does not mean the world is going to end.  It&apos;s a fad, not a solid company.  We went through this before 12 years ago.  Eventually the market figures it out.  Move on.  That&apos;s what Thiel is doing.&lt;p&gt;More fads are around the corner.  Investors will keep falling for the same old tricks.&lt;p&gt;Gates and Ellison are very poor comparisons.  Their software was not web-based (=ad-based), their main market was the enterprise and they went to great lengths to create long-term customer lock-in.  They began in a different era, and are nothing like Facebook, which is a photo-sharing website that relies on display ads and game-playing &quot;whales&quot; to make money.</text></item><item><author>qq66</author><text>Would you expect him to do anything else? Invert the question: if you had $500 million cash, would you spend it all on Facebook stock? Or Google stock? Or any one stock?&lt;p&gt;Even for company insiders who really believe in the future of their company, it isn&apos;t prudent to hold more than a small fraction of a billion-dollar fortune in one stock, from a purely rational perspective. Of course, the public expects irrationally enthusiastic behavior from founders, which is the only thing that leads to the gigantic fortunes amassed by the Gates/Ellisons of the world.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>qq66</author><text>Not sure how I can explain it any further than I already did, but diversification is smart regardless of what company you&apos;ve founded.&lt;p&gt;Even if you&apos;ve created a company which cures cancer, educates the world&apos;s children, and solves global poverty at a 40% profit margin, once you have 100% of your multi-billion dollar fortune tied up in it, it&apos;s time to diversify.</text></comment>