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Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding

forbes.com

171–180 of 267 posts

Re: Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding

#171

Sometimes I get shocked by these numbers and it reminds me how little I know about business. Like if you showed me the wikipedia page for Zapier and asked me give it some value, I would be way off. Or if you pitched the business idea to me, I would tell you do something better with your time.

I was shocked by how low the number is! My guess was that Zapier was in the 10s of millions

Re: Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding

#172
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Sometimes I get shocked by these numbers and it reminds me how little I know about business. This is because you lack the most overlooked and most difficult to teach skill in investing: empathy. Zapier lets non-programmers, the vast majority of the planet, do things that programmers do. Many programmers have poor empathy and thus make bad salespeople and investors. If you can understand how most of the planet thinks…

Imagine just blasting out at a person that you've never met and know essentially nothing about, based on a few sentences they wrote regarding startup valuations that "they lack empathy". As in you are willing to assess this other person as being completely devoid of empathy. That seems fairly insane.

It could be phrased better, but I think they got the point across. The message is something that most people (not just programmers) could relate on various levels and learn to get better.

Re: Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding

#173
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Sometimes I get shocked by these numbers and it reminds me how little I know about business. This is because you lack the most overlooked and most difficult to teach skill in investing: empathy. Zapier lets non-programmers, the vast majority of the planet, do things that programmers do. Many programmers have poor empathy and thus make bad salespeople and investors. If you can understand how most of the planet thinks…

Imagine just blasting out at a person that you've never met and know essentially nothing about, based on a few sentences they wrote regarding startup valuations that "they lack empathy". As in you are willing to assess this other person as being completely devoid of empathy. That seems fairly insane.

His reply is a textbook example of psychological projection. He clearly lacks empathy and is attempting to attribute it to someone else as a defense mechanism.

Re: Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding

#174

Sometimes I get shocked by these numbers and it reminds me how little I know about business. Like if you showed me the wikipedia page for Zapier and asked me give it some value, I would be way off. Or if you pitched the business idea to me, I would tell you do something better with your time.

>Sometimes I get shocked by these numbers and it reminds me how little I know about business. This is because you lack the most overlooked and most difficult to teach skill in investing: empathy. Zapier lets non-programmers, the vast majority of the planet, do things that programmers do. Many programmers have poor empathy and thus make bad salespeople and investors. If you can understand how most of the planet thinks…

Damn, misjudge the potential of some product made someone instantly lack of empathy? or maybe it's just that I can't feel deeply relate to everything, and not because I'm heartless bastard...(We can try to understand, yes)

Also, please don't tell other people that they lack empathy straight in the face, that's plain rude, and hey,...sounds like lack of empathy :p

Sometimes I think the application of that word is way too broad, especially in business setting.

Re: Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding

#175
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Sometimes I get shocked by these numbers and it reminds me how little I know about business. This is because you lack the most overlooked and most difficult to teach skill in investing: empathy. Zapier lets non-programmers, the vast majority of the planet, do things that programmers do. Many programmers have poor empathy and thus make bad salespeople and investors. If you can understand how most of the planet thinks…

Imagine just blasting out at a person that you've never met and know essentially nothing about, based on a few sentences they wrote regarding startup valuations that "they lack empathy". As in you are willing to assess this other person as being completely devoid of empathy. That seems fairly insane.

You just lack the empathy to understand :P

Trying to come at it optimistically I’m going to assume they hopefully mean empathy for Zapier’s users and how they use it haha

Re: Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding

#176
post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine just blasting out at a person that you've never met and know essentially nothing about, based on a few sentences they wrote regarding startup valuations that "they lack empathy". As in you are willing to assess this other person as being completely devoid of empathy. That seems fairly insane.

His reply is a textbook example of psychological projection. He clearly lacks empathy and is attempting to attribute it to someone else as a defense mechanism.

[deleted]

Re: Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any other good sources, like books or articles ?

The valuation of current tech companies is way astronomical compared to what is considered normal for mature companies. The average price to sales for S&P used to be between 1.5-2.5 for many decades. However for these newly IPO companies the price to sales ratios are around 10-15. Similarly the P/E ratio for S&P companies used to be in the 15-25 range to the considered normal . However with these internet companies,…

> ...with these internet companies, they usually do not turn a profit or if they do, their PE ratios usually lingers in from ~100 to 1000

What "internet" company has a P/E ratio above 100?

  Facebook: 25
  Apple: 31
  Netflix: 81
  Google: 36
Netflix is close, I guess.

Re: Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding

#178

Sometimes I get shocked by these numbers and it reminds me how little I know about business. Like if you showed me the wikipedia page for Zapier and asked me give it some value, I would be way off. Or if you pitched the business idea to me, I would tell you do something better with your time.

>Sometimes I get shocked by these numbers and it reminds me how little I know about business. This is because you lack the most overlooked and most difficult to teach skill in investing: empathy. Zapier lets non-programmers, the vast majority of the planet, do things that programmers do. Many programmers have poor empathy and thus make bad salespeople and investors. If you can understand how most of the planet thinks…

I don't think my mother or father could figure out Zapier. Yet they can figure out the MS Office suite and Excel to get work done. I think the premise is just wrong, Zapier is just not easy enough for non-programmers still.

This may be where some of the mystery over the product among programmers could lie. It doesn't look like it would actually let non-programmers do what programmers do at all.

Re: Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding

#179

Sometimes I get shocked by these numbers and it reminds me how little I know about business. Like if you showed me the wikipedia page for Zapier and asked me give it some value, I would be way off. Or if you pitched the business idea to me, I would tell you do something better with your time.

>Sometimes I get shocked by these numbers and it reminds me how little I know about business. This is because you lack the most overlooked and most difficult to teach skill in investing: empathy. Zapier lets non-programmers, the vast majority of the planet, do things that programmers do. Many programmers have poor empathy and thus make bad salespeople and investors. If you can understand how most of the planet thinks…

I empathize - in fact I feel the pain. Yet in all my many years of using Zapier I've never paid for the service, and I also would never have guessed the scale of their business.

Re: Zapier reached a $5B valuation with $1.3M of funding

#180

Sometimes I get shocked by these numbers and it reminds me how little I know about business. Like if you showed me the wikipedia page for Zapier and asked me give it some value, I would be way off. Or if you pitched the business idea to me, I would tell you do something better with your time.

>Sometimes I get shocked by these numbers and it reminds me how little I know about business. This is because you lack the most overlooked and most difficult to teach skill in investing: empathy. Zapier lets non-programmers, the vast majority of the planet, do things that programmers do. Many programmers have poor empathy and thus make bad salespeople and investors. If you can understand how most of the planet thinks…

Actually it's because the valuation is insane. They pull like $140MM per year and someone values that at $5B.
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