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.
商业社交网络公司LinkedIn上周的首次公开发行(IPO)，在市场上引起热烈反响，上市首日的市值接近公司收入的40倍。但与manbetx3.0 最大社交网络公司人人网(Renren)早些时候的IPO相比，这却算不了什么：人人网首日估值接近公司收入的100倍。与此同时，在二级市场上，Facebook及同类股票取得了同样令人称奇的市销率。正如在上一轮互联网狂潮中一样，投资者成了“长期主义(long-termism)”的牺牲品，而这种疾病给资本有效配置带来的损害程度，和“短期主义(short-termism)”一样大——尽管这非常有利于投资银行的利润。