I can think of a couple fairly lousy companies associated with at least two of these fine fellows. Their being involved does not say anything about Facebook's potential to make money.
That logical fallacy always bothers me especially in cases where experience and inside knowledge are crucial to forming an opinion. The people listed above all have experience, knowledge and are more qualified to value companies than many other people. Of course it doesn't make their opinions absolutely correct, but it does lend some legitimacy to the FB valuation argument.
The people listed above all have experience, knowledge and are more qualified to value companies than many other people.
I've got a dot bomb crash, real estate bubbles and sub-prime mortgages that say otherwise.
No offence to any of them personally, and I'm not about to argue FB's actual valuation, but they all have a vested interest in making us all believe that it is as high as possible.
They are the last people one should be looking at when making an investment decision.
Of course simply stating that "Argument [from] Authority is a logical fallacy" is it's self an argument from authority, one is trusting the author to have properly researched the fallacious nature.
Petty arguments aside...
Something being logically fallacious does not make it false, all it is saying is that the premise [that top business minds that have successfully done this sort of thing in the past] does not prove the conclusion [that they know what they are doing/ will be successful now].
Of course it doesn't prove it, no more than knowing someone is Jewish male proves that they are circumcised, it just provides a strong suggestion as to the outcome.
* Marc Andreessen
* Jim Breyer
* Peter Thiel
because they are some of the directors on the Facebook board, and I think they know their stuff.