"But even at half those numbers there are fantastic returns for investors and entreprenuers to be had."
What about at 0.1% of those numbers?
Facebook (while it obviously has a ways to go on direct customer monetization), is an extreme outlier whose numbers across virtually any metric are far more extreme than most startups will ever come close to. IMO it is their outlier status combined with the lackluster performance relative to that status that is the killer.
Trying to anchor other startups to Facebook's numbers at something like "half" or even a "quarter" is kind of handwavey because a startup would have to be improbably, insanely successful just to get a small fraction of the userbase Facebook enjoys.
What about at 0.1% of those numbers?
Facebook (while it obviously has a ways to go on direct customer monetization), is an extreme outlier whose numbers across virtually any metric are far more extreme than most startups will ever come close to. IMO it is their outlier status combined with the lackluster performance relative to that status that is the killer.
Trying to anchor other startups to Facebook's numbers at something like "half" or even a "quarter" is kind of handwavey because a startup would have to be improbably, insanely successful just to get a small fraction of the userbase Facebook enjoys.