Damodaran bares his FANG

BVWireIssue 187-3
April 18, 2018

valuation method
market forces, valuation methods, public company data

Aswath Damodaran (New York University Stern School of Business) gives his update on the trials, tribulations, and valuations of Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, and Google—referred to as “FANG” by the professor—in his recent blog post. In terms of fallout, at one extreme, users could rethink how they share information online, which would disrupt the FANG companies’ business models. At the other extreme, this all could blow over. Damodaran believes the outcome will be somewhere between these two extremes and that “there are changes coming to these firms, from within and without, that will have value consequences.” One thing is certain: “CEO heads cannot roll,” as they did with other companies in trouble, he says. That’s because the power of the FANG CEOs is too entrenched. For example, Mark Zuckerberg controls more than 50% of the voting rights of Facebook shares, so he can’t be fired—unless he does it himself.
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