The response to the initial public offering last week of shares in LinkedIn, the business social networking company, was euphoric, with the market capitalisation on the first day approaching 40 times revenues. Yet this was modest compared with the earlier IPO of Renren, China’s biggest social networking company, where the initial valuation was closer to 100 times revenues. In the secondary market, meantime, shares of Facebook and its ilk sell on equally fanciful multiples. As in the dotcom boom investors have fallen victim to long-termism, a disease that can be quite as damaging as short-termism to efficient capital allocation – though very good for investment bank profits.
商業(yè)社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)公司LinkedIn上周的首次公開發(fā)行(IPO)，在市場上引起熱烈反響，上市首日的市值接近公司收入的40倍。但與中國最大社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)公司人人網(wǎng)(Renren)早些時候的IPO相比，這卻算不了什么：人人網(wǎng)首日估值接近公司收入的100倍。與此同時，在二級市場上，F(xiàn)acebook及同類股票取得了同樣令人稱奇的市銷率。正如在上一輪互聯(lián)網(wǎng)狂潮中一樣，投資者成了“長期主義(long-termism)”的犧牲品，而這種疾病給資本有效配置帶來的損害程度，和“短期主義(short-termism)”一樣大——盡管這非常有利于投資銀行的利潤。