Guy Kawasaki, the oracle of technology startups, is publishing a new book, Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition. It's a robust collection (450 pages) of posts from his blog, "How to Change the World." If you are seeking to change the world, especially in this economy, Guy's advice will be very worthwhile and entertaining. Check out the BNET video below with some tips from Guy:
How much is Facebook, Wikipedia, or Twitter worth? Silicon Alley Insider is attempting to crack the mysterious code on the valuations of the major Web start-ups with its SAI 25 Live! It tracks the valuation of the private companies and shows changes in those valuations in real-time (updated every 20 minutes on the site).
(Credit:
Silicon Alley Insider)
Given that the companies in the SAI 25 (or 47 in this case) don't share their numbers like a public company, the index is based on educated guesswork, looking at a combination of VC financing, financial performance, growth rate and market share and size.
Interestingly, Facebook, which was valued at $15 billion upon the $240 million investment by Microsoft, is valued at only $9 billion. That's still a lot of money for a company that did about $150 million in revenue last year. SAI includes dossier pages for each company in it index. It attributes the lower valuation of Facebook to the failure of the Beacon social advertising service to gain acceptance.
Even if the SAI index isn't accurate, it provides a framework for evaluating the mostly opaque startups and some fun for those who love tech company sports.
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