[bhouston]

You are citing existing old ultra-successful companies, the best of the best, to justify the high valuation of startups now. That isn't much of an argument.

> My rule of thumb is that if you can get 100,000,000 users you can sell for $1,000,000,000.

Lots of users does equal success because you only have to monetize them at low numbers. But the number of 100M user companies is still very few.

> Hell did even Google have a hundred million users back then?

They had a dominant search position, so their percentage penetration of internet search was huge, maybe higher than it is now because China and its wall garden hasn't yet arisen.

[lotsofmangos]

I don't think it was a comparison of quality, just an observation of spending clout. Things are being bought at billion dollar valuations that would have failed, just because the top players don't want to even think of risking their dominance, and that isn't going to stop unless they run out of money. This means that some of the easiest exits available are in making things like snapchat, where you will get bought just because you have users communicating over it.

[XorNot]

Which is still a big risk: at some point, the market can crash simply because the dominant players get low on cash to keep making acquisitions like that. Suddenly all the assumptions and valuations people are relying on turn out not match up to reality, and everyone stops investing while they take a long hard look at their books.

[lotsofmangos]

Sure, it's a huge risk, not to mention a colossal waste of money for little long term wealth.