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Comment by kylebenzle | Hacker News Reader

Everyday I keep expecting the bottom to drop out of these money losing companies. Etsy, Uber, even Tesla. What ever happened to the value proposition of investing? When did having a value producing product fall by the wayside?

Its been the better part of 10 years, since QE1, that I've been proselytizing the end of nonsense P/E ratios but the train keeps chugging.

I guess when the dollar itself has a nonsense valuation its no surprise that vaporware companies like Apple, Google and Tesla can out-compete "real" companies like Berkshire Hathaway and Boeing.

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Vaporware? Those companies have real products that are everywhere. Google is ubiquitous in modern life. Apple is in all the pockets or the desktops of hundreds of millions. There are more Tesla’s on the road every day. Each of these companies innovates in multiple fields and has huge reach. Having outsized p/e doesn’t say anything about the company’s products.

Boeing is propped up by government funding and has had some huge screwups lately. BH doesn’t produce anything...

Apple has much higher revenue on “real” products than Boeing.

I am not sure if DoorDash's IPO price is more than it should be, but value creation (which is "real" in my view) need not always result in immediate profits and the stock market tends to be forward looking in general. How exactly are Apple, Google, Tesla and for that matter even Uber vaporware companies ? Some of them might be overvalued (by a large margin), but they still have real value in this world.

I’m confused by the connotations of “vaporware” and “real” in your comment, and the implication of the P/E values you mention (besides Tesla).

Etsy makes solid profits. You’re just on a bender. Not even thinking some companies actually do make money now. And others will at some point.

Your thesis isn't wrong (the market will return to value at some point) but your supporting arguments are. Apple in particular is as far from vaporware as it gets. And on the other side, Boeing's product situation is pretty dire.

If pumping and dumping for the robin hood chumps is far more profitable than years of dividends, which is the real product?

Berkshire is a massive Apple shareholder...

And isn't it a massive holding company? What's so real about them

Etsy isn't money losing.

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