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In reply to the discussion: Facebook's Zuckerberg, Thiel sell shares [View all]Atman
(31,464 posts)I started a dot.com in 1999. A few months later, I was on a plane to LA from MA to do a sales pitch when I literally -- literally -- watched the stock market crash before my eyes, on the pre-historic telephone screen on the seat-back in front of me. Dropping like stones, as I watched, and nothing I could do about it.
We still did our pitch in LA, and raised a lot of money, despite the market crash.
The company is still in business.
But here is the larger point...we raised half a million dollars. But the venture capitalists and lawyers and what-not valued the company at $4,000,000. Seriously. I was a millionaire for a year, and was looking at an apartment in Manhattan. But now...meh, not so much. I still own a few hundred thousand shares of stock in a company I'm no longer involved with, and which has never made a dime, but WTF?
Zuckerberg got suckerberged by his lawyers and Wall Street scam artists. Just like I did. I'm no Zuckerberg, but the scenario isn't much different...a hot property, traded by scam artists who didn't give a shit about the actual company, based upon a totally ridiculous pie-in-the-sky valuation.
It's a casino. Bet it on red, bet in black. Due diligence means nothing. When you're the target that shit means nothing. They'll make their money either way.
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