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Comment by halotrope | Hacker News Reader

I stand corrected. Thank you! Still not exactly mega-growth. Especially compared to the share price.

Revenue doubling over 3 years isn't mega growth?

Tesla isn't some start up that just IPO'd, it's one of the world's largest companies. Very few companies manage to double revenue in 3 years.

So you might next claim that revenue only doubled but stock price 10x'd over that time period. Well the reason is pretty simple, an investor who buys Tesla before its revenue grows will enjoy a better return on their investment compared to an investor who waits until afterwards to invest.

When investing, you want to look to the future potential of the company, not its past. If every 3 years Tesla manages to double their revenue, then after 6 years Tesla's revenue will match what you think is a reflection of today's stock price. At that point it will be too late to capitalize off of Tesla's stock price.

So either Tesla fails to continue its growth, maybe people end up losing interest in electric vehicles and other projects Tesla is working on, or maybe its competitors manage to produce a better electric vehicle and end up with superior battery technology... or Tesla will continue to dominate this sector, will continue innovating in this area, and in so doing will capture new segments of the electric vehicle economy that very few people are able to appreciate today.

The stock market is risky business, no one has a crystal ball, but the market is indicating that electric vehicles are going to be the future, and Tesla is the dominant player in this emerging market.

It helps when you have the global media in your pocket

> Tesla isn't some start up that just IPO'd, it's one of the world's largest companies.

Based on what?

Employees? 70K is not even on the chart. (Top 10? 500K+)

Revenue? $31.5B is also not even on the chart. (Top 50? $130B+)

Profit? $800M, again, not even on the chart. (Top 10? $24B).

Market cap? This is the only area where Tesla broaches the top ten, and it has nothing to do with being a "large" company.

The one factor that you conveniently dismiss (market cap) is usually what people look at when talking about company size.

I don't think anyone would call Berkshire Hathaway a large company - or be surprised if it doubles it's revenue in 3 years. I think Teslas stock is somewhere in the space between VW and Berkshire Hathaway, the value is already accounting for a future, much larger company. Similar to some recent IPOs, like Coinbase.

Did you make a typo? You don't think Berkshire Hathaway is a large company?

Also maybe you personally wouldn't be surprised if BRK didn't double revenue over three years, but people who are in the financial space would be absolutely shocked if it did so, considering the last time BRK managed to double it's revenue over a three year period was from 1988 to 1991.

We're used to growth in orders of magnitude in the tech industry, but keep in mind that in the end, this is an automobile company, whose business has side benefits in battery tech. Automotive is a stagnating (and at times shrinking) industry with relatively low margins, again unlike tech. Opportunities for overall growth are rare, as market saturation is quite high. In that environment, a steady 20%+ growth is respectable, to put it very lightly.

Share price is a whole other discussion, of course.

How is 100% growth in 3-4 years not mega growth in a capital intense industry?

It’s mega growth for companies that move atoms instead of electrons.

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