> where you take the last one sold and pretend all are worth that.

That’s basically how public stock exchanges work except normally in much smaller quantities than typical round. What’s not bs then?

Strictly speaking, analysis of stock does include the float. If the shares being traded are too thin, many people realize that the numbers are kind of fictitious. In particular if you’re a commercial trader, light trade levels mean you can’t sell a position without affecting the price yourself. And that’s without having Berkshire Hathaway problems, where you have to buy in secret over a long period or people will try to fast follow.

And some people think the stock market is a bit bs, yes. It’s less pyramid than an MLM, but I think we’re about to find out some things when the boomers start running out of money.

The difference is for some stocks there are active open orders large enough to sell quite a bit into. Stocks that do not have that depth are often "over the counter" or "penny stocks" and exhibit many similarities to crypto tokens.

I’m sure a lot of vcs would love to buy into much lower valuation too for some startups, not sure how that’s different

A few ways they are bs are:

- companies say they are worth price-per-share * number-of-shares but investors tend to get preferred shares which ought to be worth more

- valuations may be driven by competition between investors, how desperate the company is, the state of global financial markets, etc.