The Cash Flow Monster

Monthly Deep-Dive: Meta $META

Investors,

If you think that social media platforms will continue to play an increasing role in modern society, this newsletter is for you. If you don’t think that it will play a larger role in the future, I’d refer you to examine the trend over the past 20 years. Consider this… in January 2013, there were 1.7Bn social media users vs. 4.76Bn in January 2023! Even measured as a share of total time spent online, growth is steadily increasing over the past 10 years.

From AOL to MySpace to Flickr to Tumblr to Google+ to Vine to Clubhouse, there’s been one king who’s managed to stay relevant in the social media landscape: Meta, formerly Facebook. Being that I’m 27 years old, I’m part of the generation that grew up on Facebook and Instagram. Funny enough, I created my Facebook account in October 2008 when I was in junior high school and this was my first post on the platform:

Thanks for the update 13-year old Caleb! *facepalm*

Today’s deep-dive will focus exclusively on Meta, the tech giant who’s managed to build a network of services & platforms to become one of the largest sellers of ad space in the world. This is the second edition of the monthly deep-dive series, following up on February’s analysis of Chevron, which can be read here. These are subscriber-voted deep-dives, meaning that I will respect the outcome of the poll to ensure that I’m analyzing companies YOU want to know about. Before diving into the analysis of Facebook/Meta, please vote on which company will be analyzed in the next edition, set to be published on Wednesday, April 5th:

The company with the second highest votes will be included in the next poll, but please comment any other companies that you would like me to include in the future!

Without further ado, here’s my analysis of Meta $META: