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Snap CEO Named a Chief Business Officer, Then Changed His Mind

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Re: Snap CEO Named a Chief Business Officer, Then Changed His Mind

#51

Post by gonehome »

mrep wrote: post #44
gonehome wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're probably right, but I'd be very surprised if Snap survives - they've been outplayed by Facebook and Zuckerberg is a better CEO. If you're looking for a stock to short Snap seems like a good choice - I'd bet on failure in a few years or some sad acquisition on poor terms. The only other tech company I'm pretty confident will fail is Magic Leap, but unfortunately they're private so hard to bet against.

Someone in my building has a magic leap and I got to try it yesterday and it was pretty impressive. We played angry birds and you could walk around the bird structure shooting birds at it and it perfectly tracked everything. Granted I haven't tried any other AR or VR device but combine that with some CAD software, google assistant, and some leap motion style hand tracking and you're now Tony Stark building iron man.

I played with one too, but my take away was the opposite.

- It was dark, it looked like I was looking at a screen with sunglasses to the outside world.

- It didn't feel like I was looking at things in the real world.

- The FOV was pretty poor, I could see the edges on the sides and above.

- The battery life was short and the device was expensive.

Successful AR has obvious applications and will be huge, but the Magic Leap device falls way short of the hype [1] and I'm not convinced they'll be the ones to pull it off.

If you have a chance you should try VR (like the HTC Vive) - current VR is actually impressive.

[1] https://twitter.com/fernandojsg/status/1017411969169555457

Re: Snap CEO Named a Chief Business Officer, Then Changed His Mind

#52

Post by nwsm »

sonnyblarney wrote: post #33

It's obviously inappropriate, but not beyond what a young executive might do. Startups need to move quickly, changing your mind after 2 days is normal, it's just the politics (and optics) that are affected. It's kind of a rookie move ... but in a way, maybe it's the rookies advantage. Evan can get away with doing this because he's young. Consider that an older exec would have not changed his mind out of fear of 'look…

It's not about being young, it's about being inexperienced. You can make a parallel to Trump, whose supporters give him a lot of leeway on "inappropriate" decisions because he's not a politician.

Being inexperienced isn't a good excuse for being a bad CEO (please give any evidence you have of him being an effective one). Realizing two days after you make an important public decision that you should have made a different one is a failure, regardless of if you got it right the second time.

Founding a company doesn't mean you should be CEO.

Re: Snap CEO Named a Chief Business Officer, Then Changed His Mind

#53

Post by on_and_off »

superfrank wrote: post #23
steve19 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a charitable way to look at it. A less charitable way would be the CEO is shooting from the hip and doesn't have a clue what the company needs.

> A less charitable way would be the CEO is shooting from the hip and doesn't have a clue what the company needs. - He continued backing the redesign long after it was clear the public hated it - He continued to push spectacles and insist they were a "camera" company, long after the market showed there was no demand from it. - In the last 5 years he's gone from insisting that snap is a "social media company", to "a c…

wow this sounds familiar ..

I have worked on such a redesign of a crucial part of a popular service.

Thankfully this was killed before it was launched to everybody.

Basically as soon as the first working prototypes were out, nobody could say with a straight face that this was ever going to go well.

Re: Snap CEO Named a Chief Business Officer, Then Changed His Mind

#54

Post by ProfessorLayton »

dcole2929 wrote: post #48

I get that there is a widely held belief that startups eventually reach a point where they need veteran leadership. The kids built the thing but they need adult supervision in order to become a real company. But I find myself wondering what the logic is behind hiring a 40 year old to design the strategy for a company who's primary demographic is in their teens and twenties. Clearly this is a strategy that has worked…

Well, by that logic Nickelodeon should be run by kids, for kids.

Re: Snap CEO Named a Chief Business Officer, Then Changed His Mind

#55

Post by jboy55 »

School-Cotton wrote: post #46
jboy55 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought of SNAP shares as 'baseball cards'. In the baseball card mania of the 90s, it was said they go up and down in value as the player does well and poorly. But, hey are completely devoid of inherent value. I'm told SNAP shares would still get you some % if the company is bought, but I figure if someone does by SNAP they'll just purchase the voting stock from the founders and leave SNAP out there hanging…

What makes you think inherent value of stock is tied to voting rights? If in the future Snapchat pays dividends, won't the non-voting SNAP shares still have dividends paid out at the same rate as everyone else? It was my impression that this (along with other profit-sharing mechanisms like buybacks) was what drives the inherent value of stock.

Its my impression that dividends are set per share class. What if SNAP only pays dividends on profit to the Series B and C? So how would members of class A petition the company to give dividends to them? What recourse does the Series A holders have? Since the Series A have no power to enforce dividends, the granting of dividends would be tantamount to charity, and thus very unlikely.

Normally, you wouldn't do that because the stock owners would vote in a new board of directors, or they'd just vote in a dividend.

Perhaps if SNAP's money problems get too dire the founders would open up class A to more rights in order to sell them to raise money. My guess since people still trade the baseball cards, they wouldn't need to.

Re: Snap CEO Named a Chief Business Officer, Then Changed His Mind

#56

Post by notyourday »

steve19 wrote: post #7
whoisjuan wrote: post #5

I'm going to be devil's advocate here but the CEO (especially of a troubled company like Snap) needs to take the best decisions for the company and stretch solvency and viability for as long as possible. Of course, it's unpopular to promote someone, then rescind that offer and hire someone else. But in this case, the tradeoff seems reasonable. Hiring a well connected, veteran exec who comes from a company known for i…

That's a charitable way to look at it. A less charitable way would be the CEO is shooting from the hip and doesn't have a clue what the company needs.

He is simply refusing to accept that water is wet -- SNAP is a cam show company. The one that is very successful in that market without even trying - it does not provide payments, subscription management, or fine grained permissions. If they are to add those three they would squash their competitors like a bug and probably eat the OTT market as well.

Re: Snap CEO Named a Chief Business Officer, Then Changed His Mind

#57

Post by [deleted] »

superfrank wrote: post #23
steve19 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a charitable way to look at it. A less charitable way would be the CEO is shooting from the hip and doesn't have a clue what the company needs.

> A less charitable way would be the CEO is shooting from the hip and doesn't have a clue what the company needs. - He continued backing the redesign long after it was clear the public hated it - He continued to push spectacles and insist they were a "camera" company, long after the market showed there was no demand from it. - In the last 5 years he's gone from insisting that snap is a "social media company", to "a c…

[deleted]

Re: Snap CEO Named a Chief Business Officer, Then Changed His Mind

#58

Post by rhizome »

barbecue_sauce wrote: post #34
ryanmccullagh wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe because the board has no control over his decisions - https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/22/snap-10-k-annual-report-show...

At what point does he realize that his decisions are bad and he needs supervision?

Why would he ever think any of his thoughts are bad? When would it even occur to him?

Re: Snap CEO Named a Chief Business Officer, Then Changed His Mind

#59

Post by GhostVII »

ProfessorLayton wrote: post #54
dcole2929 wrote: post #48

I get that there is a widely held belief that startups eventually reach a point where they need veteran leadership. The kids built the thing but they need adult supervision in order to become a real company. But I find myself wondering what the logic is behind hiring a 40 year old to design the strategy for a company who's primary demographic is in their teens and twenties. Clearly this is a strategy that has worked…

Well, by that logic Nickelodeon should be run by kids, for kids.

Isn't that just reductio ad absurdum? Of course Nickelodeon shouldn't be run by kids, but there can be a benefit to having leadership that can empathize and understand your customer base better.

Re: Snap CEO Named a Chief Business Officer, Then Changed His Mind

#60

Post by bsg75 »

superfrank wrote: post #23
steve19 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a charitable way to look at it. A less charitable way would be the CEO is shooting from the hip and doesn't have a clue what the company needs.

> A less charitable way would be the CEO is shooting from the hip and doesn't have a clue what the company needs. - He continued backing the redesign long after it was clear the public hated it - He continued to push spectacles and insist they were a "camera" company, long after the market showed there was no demand from it. - In the last 5 years he's gone from insisting that snap is a "social media company", to "a c…

> he was a college kid who built an app that he wanted

But not a leader of a large organization. That takes experience gained from multiple stages of a career. It is more than luck and timing.

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