安德森?霍洛維茨：為什么說我們并非處于新一輪的科技泡沫中
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????簡而言之，情況已今非昔比，因為相隔15年，市場一定會有變化。安德森?霍洛維茨公司認為，要點在于了解不同之處，及其會對投資回報帶來哪些利弊。正如上面的幻燈片所顯示的，該公司對市場仍然看多。 ????但在筆者看來，這份報告對三個重要問題過于輕描淡寫了，分別是： ????1.目前科技股的市盈率更接近20世紀90年代初的水平，而非20世紀90年代末水平，但這在很大程度上是因為現在上市的“獨角獸”公司過少。所以我們不禁要問，這真的有可比性嗎？公開市場投資者的確是亞馬遜和微軟等公司股價上漲的主要受益者，但2000年底到2001年有風投支持的大量科技公司崩盤時，他們也是主要受損者。另外，對于目前鮮有“獨角獸”公司IPO的原因，一個常見解釋是雖然現在的公司通常比1999年成功上市的那些公司存活得久一點，但在未實現盈利以及公司治理不完善等方面非常相似。那么，會不會安德森?霍洛維茨等風投公司就像2000年底的公開市場投資者那樣，正在接近拐點？二者結果會殊途同歸嗎？這些公司不上市確實可以積累新增價值，但另一方面，風險也在增大。 ????2. 按照同樣的思路分析，這份報告稱，科技公司IPO較少是市場健康的一個信號。上周我曾發表文章指出，深究起來這個問題遠沒有那么樂觀。而且，IPO匱乏還意味著許多“獨角獸”公司的估值尚未在公開市場得到驗證。 ????3. 安德森?霍洛維茨的報告還漏掉1999年和目前的一個不同之處，即創始人握有控制權，或者說，風投公司對投資對象的影響力遠小于以往。當然，出現這種局面的部分原因和Facebook的成功有著直接關系。Facebook始終在創始人控制中，而且沒有早早地把自己賣掉（這和大多數投資者以及顧問的意見相反，但安德森?霍洛維茨公司聯合創始人馬克·安德森是個例外），這儼然是商業天才的做派。我們還不清楚這樣的變化最終會帶來什么影響，但對VC來說，挑選創業公司變得更關鍵，價值大大超過了像以往那樣通過經營創造增值的重要性。（財富中文網） ????譯者：Charlie ????審校：夏林 |
????In short: This time is different because there are always differences between markets that are 15 years apart. What’s important, Andreessen Horowitz believes, is understanding these differences and how they should impact investment returns (positively or negatively). As the above slide shows, the firm remains bullish. ????But there are three big issues that, from my perspective the Andreessen Horowitz presentation glosses over a bit too quickly: ????1. While it is true that today’s tech P/E multiples are closer to the early 1990’s than the late 1990’s, a big part of that is because so few of the unicorns have gone public. So is it really an apples to apples comparison? Moreover, while it is true that public equity investors were the main beneficiaries of stock price run-ups for companies like Amazon and Microsoft , they also were the primary losers when a wider swath of VC-backed tech companies collapsed in late 2000 and 2001. When trying to understand the current lack of unicorn IPOs, one common explanation is that these companies, while typically older than 1999 IPO issuers, share traits like unprofitabilty and immature corporate governance. What if VC firms like Andreessen Horowitz are nearing the same type of inflection point that public equities investors hit in late 2000? Different but the same? The flip-side of hoarding value appreciation by keeping companies private is that you’re also increasing risk. ????2. In a related vein, Andreessen Horowitz’s presentation treats the relative lack of tech IPOs as a sign of market health. As I wrote last week, there is a much less charitable way to view it. Moreover, the lack of IPOs also means that the public markets have yet to validate many of these unicorn valuations. ????3. One difference between 1999 and today that wasn’t addressed in the presentation was that of founder control, or how VCs have much less influence over portfolio companies than they did in years past. Part of this, of course, is directly related to the success of Facebook — a founder-controlled company that opted not to sell out early (against the advice of most of its investors and advisors, save for the notable exception of Marc Andreessen) in an obvious stroke of business genius. It is unclear how this change will ultimately play out, but it certainly puts much more value on startup stock-picking than on operational value-add. |
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