That's fair. But it doesn't work like that for me.
Now that I think about it, I can come up two reasons:
1) The sums involved. Both for the deals in question (AOL, WhatsApp) or in my football example, the sums are mind-bendingly large. I .. cannot grasp those. Millions are already insane, but billions? I have no clue how to value _anything_ at those levels. Certainly not things that aren't entirely new or special. My gut feeling says "That's far too much" a lot earlier already, more or less regardless of what we're talking about.
2) I guess the market is hard to estimate if you're not only not part of it, you're actively surrounding yourself with people that are like-minded. Sure, every WhatsApp user can tell a story about friends and family getting a lot of value out of it. Of course! In a similar fashion I can point out that none of my family members (as far as I'm aware) use it, none of my friends seems to require it, it .. doesn't exist in my ecosystem and the last person that asked if I am on WhatsApp - about 3 month ago - was a manager at work. I mean.. WTH? "No, and certainly not for work". It's reinforcing the initial position, confirming my bias. "No one uses it, no one needs it".
Then again, maybe that _is_ a lack of empathy. You're the judge. I merely express my disbelief and sense of wonder here, if everyone thinks these values are cool then yes, I'm obviously wrong.
Now that I think about it, I can come up two reasons:
1) The sums involved. Both for the deals in question (AOL, WhatsApp) or in my football example, the sums are mind-bendingly large. I .. cannot grasp those. Millions are already insane, but billions? I have no clue how to value _anything_ at those levels. Certainly not things that aren't entirely new or special. My gut feeling says "That's far too much" a lot earlier already, more or less regardless of what we're talking about.
2) I guess the market is hard to estimate if you're not only not part of it, you're actively surrounding yourself with people that are like-minded. Sure, every WhatsApp user can tell a story about friends and family getting a lot of value out of it. Of course! In a similar fashion I can point out that none of my family members (as far as I'm aware) use it, none of my friends seems to require it, it .. doesn't exist in my ecosystem and the last person that asked if I am on WhatsApp - about 3 month ago - was a manager at work. I mean.. WTH? "No, and certainly not for work". It's reinforcing the initial position, confirming my bias. "No one uses it, no one needs it".
Then again, maybe that _is_ a lack of empathy. You're the judge. I merely express my disbelief and sense of wonder here, if everyone thinks these values are cool then yes, I'm obviously wrong.