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Snap Inc. S-1

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Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#261

Post by argonaut »

halite wrote: post #216
barce wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For comparison, Facebook had 3500 employees at the time of their IPO, and it's "just a website." Snapchat is many products: video ad platform, augmented reality selfie app, broadcast platform via sunglasses, photo uploading app, and messaging app.

do we really want to get into this discussion? whatsapp had what Facebook had ÷ 100.

Whatsapp was also never profitable either. They almost didn't even bother to make money (the subscription thing is a misnomer since they waived it left and right).

And by their own admission, they intentionally tried to slow user growth.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#262

Post by simonebrunozzi »

obulpathi wrote: post #240
leothekim wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not possible to build your own "alternative in the market" for $2 billion?

Expert on Cloud Computing here. Short answer is "No". Here is why. Google Cloud has infrastructure that scales to petabytes of data and millions of users. Google primary uses this infrastructure for storing, processing and communicating the Internet. Add the services like Pub/Sub, Dataflow, BigQuery, TensorFlow & CloudML and things like security, communication backbone, ... its near impossible to build Google Cloud o…

Hmm. Cloud computing expert here, too. I partially disagree.

I would simply say "it depends". For companies with specific use cases, e.g. Dropbox, it makes A LOT of sense to build at least 60-70% private, and the rest on AWS or GCP. Snapchat looks like a special case to me.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#263

Post by moxious »

mikeyouse wrote: post #256
moxious wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Insane is right. They lose that much money, and don't have a plan for profitability. If you lose money on each customer and scale the business...well, uh, losses scale too. I guess I'm just old fashioned, here I thought the point of businesses was to make money, at least eventually. This quote is a killer: "We have incurred operating losses in the past, expect to incur operating losses in the future, and may never ac…

All of the same criticisms could be applied to YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc while they were at that stage. Some turn out to make pallet-fulls of money, some (Twitter) never quite crest. The quote at the end is just boiler plate language they need to include in their S1 so they aren't sued by shareholders in 10 years.

Pretty sure those other companies declared an intention to make a profit. Saying the opposite is indeed news.

And sure, the company might turn the corner. But seriously why would investors pay $3 billion with a pitch like this? I guess they're just playing other investors in the end. There seems neither money making capacity here nor the promise of it by their own admission.

Are you saying we should ignore their clear words on this topic and decide the management is wrong and they'll probably end up profitable?

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#264

Post by giarc »

kgwgk wrote: post #119
yggda wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple Spends $220K on Tim Cook http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/AAPL/3444424458x0x921...

And Facebook spends $5mn on security for its CEO and $1m for its CFO. http://nypost.com/2016/04/28/facebook-has-spent-14-5m-on-zuc...

I would say that Zuckerberg is much more recognizable than Spiegel. Likely gets mobbed where ever he goes.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#265

Post by spoinkaroo »

charlesdm wrote: post #69
ejcx wrote: post #15

Am I reading this right? I'm no banker... Their losses for 2016 were ~$500m? That's very steep, but it looks like revenue grew almost 700%. Wow. Insane numbers. I don't think anyone on the planet knows what's going to happen with them but I am sure interested in finding out.

$50 it'll tank like Twitter. (And to the people downvoting me, please explain why you think it won't tank like Twitter - thanks!)

So why not short the stock? You will likely have to wait until after the IPO and may pay an arm and a leg for the privilege with limited initial float, but it's entirely up to your discretion. Even more appealing if snapchat does well on the first day of trading.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#267

Post by ilyanep »

moxious wrote: post #263
mikeyouse wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of the same criticisms could be applied to YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, etc while they were at that stage. Some turn out to make pallet-fulls of money, some (Twitter) never quite crest. The quote at the end is just boiler plate language they need to include in their S1 so they aren't sued by shareholders in 10 years.

Pretty sure those other companies declared an intention to make a profit. Saying the opposite is indeed news. And sure, the company might turn the corner. But seriously why would investors pay $3 billion with a pitch like this? I guess they're just playing other investors in the end. There seems neither money making capacity here nor the promise of it by their own admission. Are you saying we should ignore their clea…

It's a risk factors statement, not an intent statement. They also aren't seeking to have anything else in that list become true.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#268

Post by thinkloop »

obulpathi wrote: post #240
leothekim wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not possible to build your own "alternative in the market" for $2 billion?

Expert on Cloud Computing here. Short answer is "No". Here is why. Google Cloud has infrastructure that scales to petabytes of data and millions of users. Google primary uses this infrastructure for storing, processing and communicating the Internet. Add the services like Pub/Sub, Dataflow, BigQuery, TensorFlow & CloudML and things like security, communication backbone, ... its near impossible to build Google Cloud o…

> if they focus on building infrastructure, it might slow them down

I always found this issue of "focus" a bit strange. Two billion can buy a lot of focus. For example, say there was a separate company smaller than Google that snap outsourced their infrastructure to, allowing them to focus, then they bought that company - it comes out to the same.

The technical capabilities is a different story.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#269

Post by sib »

adtac wrote: post #107
twinkletwinkle wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I imagine it's a legal disclaimer. Same reason every investing prospectus in existence says "Past performance is not a guarantee of future returns"

Are there legal implications if you use language like "we _hope_ to get to a profitable stage within one year"?

It's more that there are no upsides (saying "hope to" doesn't sound very certain, so no one is going to increase the price they'll pay for your IPO shares) and there are downsides if you don't become profitable within a year, once you've said you hope / intend to. So, the bottom-line incentives are not to say it.

Re: Snap Inc. S-1

#270

Post by batiudrami »

JBlue42 wrote: post #257
joycey wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To generate excitement for X-Men: Apocalypse, 20th Century Fox ran a Sponsored Lens campaign that let users turn themselves into the iconic characters in the upcoming movie. In one day, people spent a collective 56 years playing with the Sponsored Lenses, which also featured the mutants’ powers. They also incorporated the Sponsored Lens into Snaps they shared with their friends, which yielded over 298 million views…

>"drove a 25% lift in theater-watch intent" Intent is not action.

But it is a way to compare ad effectiveness across mediums so what is your point?
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