For example, one world I'm somewhat familiar with is financial planning businesses. In selling a financial planning business, you'll give it a back of the envelope pricing of several multiples (say 2x - 5x) of the amount of revenue the business is generating/expected to generate annually. That way, the buyer says to himself "Well, I make the big investment now and then I reach breaking-even point 3 years down the road" and from there it's all profit. 2x - 5x is a reasonable valuation, because both the buyer/seller can reasonably expect the business fundamentals to remain solid for that period of time. If the seller feels the business may be solid for longer, then he may push for a higher multiple. Conversely, a lower multiple may be justified in the opposite situation.
Back to fundamentals, dollars to donuts, a valuation north of $1B for a company earning a fraction of that in revenue is to me making the statement "We expect the fundamentals of this business to remain solid practically forever" or "We expect this company to accelerate from zero to infinity" - because you would literally need it to in order to recoup your out of pocket *
In the tech industry, that just seems a laughable proposition.
* Of course, there are many other considerations (people value, etc.) but at its core the dollars have to add up or you're just upping the ante on the bubble.
Also companies like Microsoft have plenty of cash that just sits there in a bank account, like $50 billion or something. Buying Yammer is harmless for them and may yield a better ROI than letting all that cash rot.
85 Percent of Fortune 500 Companies Use Yammer.
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200,000 companies - large and small - are
changing the way they work with Yammer85% of Fortune 500 companies 200k companies total