Thread by @YossiGestetner

1/ The collapse of @SBF_FTX (yes, both FTX and SBF's alleged net worth) underscores the need for @Forbes, and others but especially Forbes, to change how they estimate the net worth of the allegedly most wealthy people.

@Steven_Ehrlich @ChaseWithorn @SteveForbesCEO

2/ If a handful of investments funds put up, say, $100 million in your company and give it a valuation of $2.5 billion, #Forbes400 will call you a billionaire if you own half the company. This is done no matter how much revenue or profit the company has.

cc @KerryDolan

3/ This valuation is done even if companies of similar structure, revenue and profit trade at much lower multiples in the public market.

Oops. Strike that. Did I compare privately-held companies with no public books to publicly-traded companies that file reports quarterly?

Oy.

4/ In September 2022, FTX tried raising $1 billion from investors at a valuation of $32 billion; a valuation in place from earlier.

With SBF owning around half of the company and other of his assets, his net worth was kept by Forbes at $17 billion 5 days following this news:

5/ Here is SBF's net worth of $17.2 billion (nice touch there of point two) as of 9/27/22" on the Forbes website all because a group of arrogant clowns who have been taken on a ride decided that SBX is worth $32 billion.

6/ It gets worse, according to the SEC press release, FTX received $1.8 billion in investor funds.

This means that investors had put up only 5.6% of their $32 billion valuation, yet this small sum (in relative terms) was enough to crown SBF a $17 billion dollar person?

Please!

7/ By this standard, if a few people value my company at $2 billion at $100 a share and they give me a few $100, Forbes can list me as a billionaire.

Ok.

Maybe not for a few hundred dollars, but what IS the Forbes (and Bloomberg) standard?

cc @KerryDolan @ChaseWithorn

8/ The next measuring stick would be to look where companies in this or the similar product space trade at in the public market.

Ok. Let's look at Coinbase.

The company had $7.8 billion net revenue in 2021 and its market capitalization is now less than $10 billion.

9/ Even if you go back a half a year, before many Crypto-related companies tanked, the Coinbase market cap was only a few times its NET revenue.

SBX allegedly had $1 billion in revenue in 2021 and it was expected to be similar this year.

Why are they valued 32 times this level?

10/ It gets worse:

Coinbase earned $3 billion last year while FTX allegedly earned $388 million.

Coinbase's market value at the start of the year was 16 times their earnings. Now it's abit more than 3x this amount.

FTX if alive should have been worth now maybe $1.2 billion.

11/ All in all, FTX was not a $32 billion collapse and SBF didn't lose $17 billion.

Net worths should be measured by looking at the value that the broad public puts on things; not what a few dozen clowns or less decide something is worth.

12/ Cash, currency, real estate, and public stock are examples of things to be counted.

Stocks in privately-held companies are valuable too but only when set at valuations similar to what publicly-traded companies are at.

Wine, art and cars? Sure. But they too vary.

Anyway.