Staggering Phenomena of the Twitter IPO

Facebook has since righted the ship, after its IPO fiasco a year and a half ago.  In contrast, Twitter is off to a terrific start as a public company, despite the fact that it's the most expensive stock in all of technology as far as price-to-sales ratio is concerned.  All of this, for a company that is losing millions of dollars.  It's a remarkable yet odd world we live in, when even the fundamentals of business, that is, earning money, do not seem to apply.  But we are reminded, I suppose, that investors play in a very different world altogether and may not even care about the business.  They just want to make money.

What a select, fortune few rake in, for an IPO like Twitter's, is staggering indeed.  Vast segments of the world cannot even fathom what these numbers mean or what such cash looks like.  Congratulations to these big winners.  I hope they will channel a good amount of their spoils for charitable or humanitarian purposes.

It's a tall order for Twitter to realize its potential and to deliver dividends to its shareholders.  But if in fact Vine by itself outgrows the rest of Twitter, as Jack Dorsey expects, then that potential may be far greater than we can imagine today.

I agree with CEO Dick Costolo that millions of people, a segment of whom are investors, understand what Twitter is and how it works.  Movie stars, athletes and broadcasters are on Twitter in hordes, and the familiar hashtag is often referenced on TV.  But it took time to get to this point of understanding and activity.  I got active over two years ago, but it was only this year that I found my stride in using it.

Thank you for reading, and let me know what you think!

Ron Villejo, PhD