Possible Facebook IPO: History reapeating itself?

[Evan]

http://paul.kedrosky.com/archives/20...ok_ipo_wa.html

I don’t want to talk about whether or not you think Facebook will go public. Save that discussion for bbv4stockmarkets or something. For the purpose of this thread, let’s just assume they do.

A lot of people in the tech industry have been talking about whether or not we’re in a bubble right now. One of the most popular justifications for the late 2000’s being different than the late 1990’s is that the enthusiastic investments and high valuations have not spilled over into the public markets. Facebook has been the apple of Silicon Valley’s eye and Zuckerberg has resisted offers over $1 billion in the past. According to rumors they’re doing about $500 million in annualized revenue, but I don’t think they’re making a lot of profits, if any (someone correct me if I'm wrong, this is just based on old news and the fact that they recently did another round of funding).

I think that if we do repeat a bit of history this might be a moment people look back on and say “that was the beginning of the end.” Obviously that could prove to be a good observation or completely retarded. I wouldn’t be surprised if this leads to some other well known but currently private companies ended up going after public capital. I can't predict the future but this story I've concoted does start to sound a bit like 1998 all over again.

What do you guys think?