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Founders’ Email to Clubhouse Employees

blog.clubhouse.com

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Re: Founders’ Email to Clubhouse Employees

#71

Post by adra »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #24
gkoberger wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They weren't buying the technology, they were buying the community + creators on the platform. This has nothing to do with AI at all. Clubhouse was a kinda cool social network that came out at exactly the right time during COVID. AI is something we've been working towards since the 50s, and over the next few years will change absolutely everything.

Twitter already had a large community and set of creators while Clubhouse really didn't. Moreover, most of the Clubhouse users already had Twitter accounts and just switched their audio conversations to Twitter Spaces once that product became available. I think at this point it's obvious that Clubhouse was not worth $4B (10% of Twitter's final sale price!), so no point in arguing about that. The interesting question…

In a world of fast and loose cash, people find justifications for spending fast and loose. I don't think it requires too much more than that. Crypto firms running on good will and hype managed to get billions of $ (in crypo-bucks) to dump their money, much of which is completely gone. You could argue overvalued, but in the world of pets.com, this is far from the worst example of outsized speculation.

Re: Founders’ Email to Clubhouse Employees

#73

Post by highwayman47 »

gkoberger wrote: post #13
clpm4j wrote: post #11

Salary through the end of August is a pretty nice severance. Still unfortunate for those laid off, but this might be the most generous package I've seen so far.

Airbnb's was 3.5 months + 1 week for every year you've been at the company, along with a full year of COBRA. https://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-layoffs-generous-seve...

I would WANT to get laid off if I could get that deal

Re: Founders’ Email to Clubhouse Employees

#74

Post by saddd »

Prbeek wrote: post #58
rvz wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was no chance that Twitter (who already had periscope) would accept a $4B+ deal to buy Clubhouse. In fact, it was very predictable as I said here before the acquisition talks that Twitter would push on with using Spaces instead of buying Clubhouse. [0] The hard truth was that Clubhouse launched too slowly and even Twitter Spaces launched faster than Clubhouse to release their Android app. [1] The invite system,…

Who launches an IOS first app in 2023? You are telling android users that they are not important

I don't have links to back this up, but I believe the following two statements are true in US markets, based on my anecdotal industry experiences:

- The majority of mobile apps that only launch on one native platform (but are eventually available on both Android and iOS) launch on iOS first.

- The majority of mobile apps that are only available on one native platform are only available on iOS.

Re: Founders’ Email to Clubhouse Employees

#76

Post by segasaturn »

nikanj wrote: post #62
Prbeek wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their IOS first app and invite only launch alienated many potential users and gave an opening to Twitter to launch spaces with a huge audience.

The invite-only launch was a selling point. "It's a exclusive service, but if you score an invite, you might have a casual chat with a bunch of billionaires and SV bigwigs."

This may be surprising to people in Palo Alto but 99.9% of regular working people have nothing to say to billionaires and SV influencers, outside of maybe some profanities. There's no way a product with that as the premise would have had a future outside of its ivory tower niche.

Re: Founders’ Email to Clubhouse Employees

#77

Post by codemac »

say_it_as_it_is wrote: post #30

> Laptops. We will allow everyone who is impacted to keep their company-issued laptops, to help them research and apply for new roles. Is this common?

Back in the day, NetApp did something similar. It's sad it's not more common, it really helps folks apply for jobs if they don't have a pile of laptops at home.

Though, as the price of computers have come down, it's less common for folks to not have a computer at home - it's still a wonderful gesture that's very low cost.

Re: Founders’ Email to Clubhouse Employees

#78

Post by manv1 »

IMO the real problem with Clubhouse was it was for the intelligentsia and their hangers-on. That's not a profitable market.

Advertising dollars chase the masses, and what the masses want is, well, celebrities, the good looking, the attractive, and the funny. The public is chasing dopamine hits, and advertisers chase the public.

Re: Founders’ Email to Clubhouse Employees

#79

Post by lotsofpulp »

vkou wrote: post #22
ericzawo wrote: post #21

There was a period in late 2020 where I was convinced Clubhouse would leapfrog Twitter as the place where valuable industry-facing conversation and information would be housed.

The problem is that valuable industry conversation and information isn't all that valuable. A billion monkeys slinging shit at each other is.

If it was valuable, you would be selling it or making trades or business decisions with it, not giving it away for free.

Re: Founders’ Email to Clubhouse Employees

#80

Post by travem »

nikanj wrote: post #64
Prbeek wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who launches an IOS first app in 2023? You are telling android users that they are not important

They are plenty important, but they're not rich . iPhones are not the majority of the market by any stretch, but they do form a majority of the phones well-off people use. I know you and your coder friends use Android despite having plenty of money, but the general public sees Androids as the budget option.

> iPhones are not the majority of the market by any stretch

It depends on which market you are looking at. In the US market Apple apparently has a 57% share according to https://www.statista.com/statistics/620805/smartphone-sales-....

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