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Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

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Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#141

Post by nostrademons »

gjolund wrote: post #131

The only real value of Snapchat is that now I dont have to scroll past the innane content snapchat is used for on other social networks. Im not going to say snapchat is or isnt worth $20b. I am going to say that I am sad that so much energy and money is being thrown at such a trivial application. Im a software engineer, and i like solving real problems. I cant imagine working at snapchat and trying to motivate myself…

You have to understand, though, that most people in the world are not software engineers and interacting with their friends is one of their favorite things to do.

The essence of business is solving problems that are important to other people with solutions that are interesting to you.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#142

Post by gallonofmilk »

gjolund wrote: post #131

The only real value of Snapchat is that now I dont have to scroll past the innane content snapchat is used for on other social networks. Im not going to say snapchat is or isnt worth $20b. I am going to say that I am sad that so much energy and money is being thrown at such a trivial application. Im a software engineer, and i like solving real problems. I cant imagine working at snapchat and trying to motivate myself…

just like beauty, utility in this case is in the eye of the beholder. countless millions of people are finding utility in sending self-destructing pictures of themselves to eachother and although it might not seem like a "real" problem, there is inherent complexity and technical challenge in providing a large-scale social service that said millions use daily. disclaimer: i don't use it.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#143

Post by heavenlyhash »

1.8B.

1,800 Million, right? Stop me when the math goes wrong.

Divided into bundles of 200k: 9000x.

Let's say each member of a team costs 200k/yr. High for some, low for others, whatever.

1.8B dollars is enough money for a team of OVER NINE THOUSAND people.

What... exactly is taking that much effort, here? What is this money fueling? I honestly boggle to imagine.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#144

Post by connoredel »

I wonder if there was any secondary equity sold. Spiegel famously took out $10M back in 2013 and bought a Ferrari. As an investor/BOD member, I think you need to balance between giving founders a taste of something so they don't sell at the first offer or push to IPO too early and potentially giving someone generational wealth when there is still so much work to do.

Remember Secret? Founders got $3M while investors with preferred stock even couldn't recoup their loss.

I can't help but think employees with common stock are always the losers here. Founders' "common stock" is really given preferential treatment -- it's obviously more liquid. Your average employee didn't get to sell his shares directly to some poor VC before the company went under.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#145

Post by overcast »

v64 wrote: post #140
overcast wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, if I take the example from above regarding two people in a relationship. It IS nice, in my experience, to have a running dialogue with pictures available from our relationship. There are plenty of great moments I've received that I would prefer not to just disappear.

> There are plenty of great moments I've received that I would prefer not to just disappear. Between my SO and I, for stuff that's more memorable and may want to be saved, we'll use email, but for stuff like "look at this weird sign I saw downtown", we'll use Snapchat. An app is all about its use cases.

That's fair, we just use text message, and keep it in one place. Bouncing between different apps for essentially the same thing isn't something I feel like spending time doing.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#146

Post by ramenmeal »

gjolund wrote: post #131

The only real value of Snapchat is that now I dont have to scroll past the innane content snapchat is used for on other social networks. Im not going to say snapchat is or isnt worth $20b. I am going to say that I am sad that so much energy and money is being thrown at such a trivial application. Im a software engineer, and i like solving real problems. I cant imagine working at snapchat and trying to motivate myself…

What about snapchat is useless? Or is this just typical "damn kids these days" speak? The app is an incredible form of communication, and there is a reason people prefer it to other mediums.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#147

Post by Vraxx »

overcast wrote: post #139
lotso wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's a question. Why do we need to record everything we do digitally? It's not like we record our conversations when people hang out in person. I'd argue it's stupid that we archive and collect every meaningless conversation we have.

Well, if I take the example from above regarding two people in a relationship. It IS nice, in my experience, to have a running dialogue with pictures available from our relationship. There are plenty of great moments I've received that I would prefer not to just disappear.

I also agree with the sibling post on this one, but another line of reasoning is that when texting pictures or other forms of sending, the default option is that the photo is saved. When using snapchat it's the opposite. Screenshotting allows you to keep it if you want, you can replay it if you missed it, but if it's not anything exceedingly special or worth keeping, it is discarded. In todays world I find myself with far more data that I can keep organized, and a lot of it is not of any particular value.

Another way of phrasing that argument is that if you look through my snapchat screenshot folder vs the received images from my SO, the snapchat screenshot has a higher density of content worth keeping.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#148

Post by dboshardy »

heavenlyhash wrote: post #143

1.8B. 1,800 Million, right? Stop me when the math goes wrong. Divided into bundles of 200k: 9000x. Let's say each member of a team costs 200k/yr. High for some, low for others, whatever. 1.8B dollars is enough money for a team of OVER NINE THOUSAND people. What... exactly is taking that much effort, here? What is this money fueling? I honestly boggle to imagine.

That math holds if they are planning to only spend money on hiring those people for 1 year only.

More realistically, the money is probably for tech overhead. Server space, software licensing, money for keeping all their servers working for a while (support, replacement servers/drives) etc.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#149

Post by traviswingo »

curiousgal wrote: post #45
traviswingo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, touche. Facebook is actually worth what the market claims it to be worth, because of the large amount of people in one place, all willing to tell the world exactly what their interests are. Its a marketing heaven. Snapchat might be worth a lot, but I'm just sick of companies like this being valued so high, simply because they provide literally no benefit to society. If Snapchat went down tomorrow, would it r…

I don't know why you're getting downvoted but you are absolutely right.

It's cool, you can't please everyone.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#150

Post by Trill-I-Am »

gjolund wrote: post #131

The only real value of Snapchat is that now I dont have to scroll past the innane content snapchat is used for on other social networks. Im not going to say snapchat is or isnt worth $20b. I am going to say that I am sad that so much energy and money is being thrown at such a trivial application. Im a software engineer, and i like solving real problems. I cant imagine working at snapchat and trying to motivate myself…

Every bit of structured recreation you partake in has people devoted to it as careers.
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