Champagne For Breakfast?

Last Thursday morning, in Mountain View, CA at 6:00AM, employees and past employees who are shareholders held glasses of champagne waiting to celebrate while in New York city, where it was 9:00AM, 100 brokers crowded around LinkedIn's post as the New York Stock Exchange began trading.  LinkedIn, the social media platform for business professionals with over 100 million members, began their initial public offering (IPO) of stock at a price of $45 per share.  At 4:00PM in New York, LinkedIn closed at $94.25 per share. 


The champagne celebrating shareholders received congratulatory phone calls from family members, friends .... and tax advisors.  The average purchase price for existing stockholders is $1 per share.  Many became instant millionaires on paper. The 20% stake of LinkedIn's chairman, Reid Hoffman, calculated to $1.8 billion in value. 


One short month ago, in April 2011, employees were given options at $22.59 per share, which was considered a fair value for a share of LinkedIn stock.  Facebook, said to be worth $35 billion in December of 2010 (less than a half year ago) is now valued at $70 billion, and is expected to make an initial public offering of stock in the near future.  Monster.com was a hot stock in 2007, yet now sells for a fraction of the 2007 peak price.


Anyone else besides me remember a dot.com boom, and subsequent bust, about a decade ago?


Monster.com is valued at $1.9 billion (20% the value of LinkedIn) and had $1 billion in revenue.  LinkedIn had $243 million in revenue in 2010.  I'm as enamored with the potential of social media as much as anyone, but, quick:  name a dot.com success from the last bubble other than Amazon and eBay.


Aside from LinkedIn ex-employees, I can think of a fella who lives in DC in a house regularly repainted in white and 535 elected people who work in a building nearby that are desperately hoping these technology companies will help to revive an incredibly ill economy.  


Until then, I can't wait to buy some Facebook stock.  Just as soon as I sell my MySpace stock for the same price I purchased it.


Know anybody willing to buy MySpace stock these days?


Thanks for sharing 121 seconds of your day,
Smitty