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Does Snapchat's CEO Need to Go?

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Re: Does Snapchat's CEO Need to Go?

#61

Post by samiur1204 »

jimsilverman wrote: post #36

i'm shocked by the comments here. it was a massive and anticipated security flaw. the CEO's reaction was not to fix it, not to apologize, but to arrogantly lie about the severity of the threat. less than a week after the CEO deemed the attack theoretical, it happened. the CEO's reaction was not to fix it, not to apologize, but to offer an opt-out after the damage had been done. not sure why snapchat is getting a free…

Completely agreed. I wrote an article about precisely this: http://blog.samiurr.com/snapchat-another-example-of-the-hubr...

Re: Does Snapchat's CEO Need to Go?

#62

Post by kyro »

001sky wrote: post #3

Where does media punditry get off on making absolutist calls for heads to "roll"? I mean, imaging if random non-experts had a journalist fired for every failed-prediction or embarrasingly wrong policy analysis penned in an op-ed? There would be no journalists left !

Journalists for the most part are attention-whoring nobodies with no expertise in any particular subject, who hide behind overly aggressive and opinionated words. Watch pundits on any news channel, or read any massively circulated news source and it's pretty clear to confirm what I'm saying. They jiggle their jowls with such empty emotion and intensity.

May be harsh, but I think it's pretty accurate.

Re: Does Snapchat's CEO Need to Go?

#63

Post by w1ntermute »

robterrell wrote: post #60
w1ntermute wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He gave a plausible and coherent explanation of Snapchat's strategy No, he doesn't. All he did was demonstrate his utter lack of understanding of East Asia. East Asian cultures are high-context, meaning that when Tencent released non-messenger services (that could actually turn a profit), users were much more likely to use them because they were already familiar with the company and its existing messaging service.…

That's what people said about Asia-style free-to-play games, too: that they would never work in the West due to cultural differences. Turns out that was totally wrong.

No, you're actually making the mistake of conflating China with the rest of Asia. Japan, which also has a high-context culture, has paid upfront for games for decades. And it wasn't just that free-to-play games were popular in China first, it's that paid games could never turn a profit because people would pirate them. There's a huge difference between people not using a product and people using it without paying for it.

The primary reason why free-to-play games became popular in the West is because the $0.99 floor that Apple set for the App Store drove consumer psychology regarding app purchases, which made it difficult to turn a profit in any other way. Just take a look at Steam to see how much money is being made from non-freemium games.

Re: Does Snapchat's CEO Need to Go?

#64

Post by Crito »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #56
spamizbad wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a meritocracy to work there must be consequences for both good and bad actions. A pundit's merit is judged by their page views; not by their correctness. Their salary is based off their readership. If their readership wants to be fed convenient lies that reenforce their world view that's their perogative.

I recently heard Sarah Lacy say they ensure their writers do not know the pageview count.

Presumably they still reward good performance though, so writers are still incentivized to attempt to get good pageviews, even if they cannot know the exact numbers themselves (and they can probably get reasonable estimates by watching mentions in social media)

Re: Does Snapchat's CEO Need to Go?

#65

Post by lotso »

BlackDeath3 wrote: post #12
spada wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that turned down a $3b sale. staggering that this call was made.

For an application that... does what? Shares short-lived picture/video messages? Maybe I don't quite get Snapchat, but color me unimpressed.

Things people say at early stages of tech companies:

Facebook... it's just a way to create a profile of yourself and share pictures and messages. Color me unimpressed!

Tumblr... it's just a basic blogging platform... nothing new? Color me unimpressed!

Twitter... it's a 140 character status updates? Color me unimpressed!

Re: Does Snapchat's CEO Need to Go?

#66

Post by jonathanjaeger »

rokhayakebe wrote: post #56
spamizbad wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a meritocracy to work there must be consequences for both good and bad actions. A pundit's merit is judged by their page views; not by their correctness. Their salary is based off their readership. If their readership wants to be fed convenient lies that reenforce their world view that's their perogative.

I recently heard Sarah Lacy say they ensure their writers do not know the pageview count.

They get a really high CPM for the ads they place, so it's not all about the pageviews. If you wrote a bunch of linkbait or put a few slideshows up there, they might not have the same audience, and therefore wouldn't get the same CPMs they're getting now.

So not knowing the pageview count might actually help in the case of PandoDaily.

Re: Does Snapchat's CEO Need to Go?

#68

Post by jxf »

kyro wrote: post #62
001sky wrote: post #3

Where does media punditry get off on making absolutist calls for heads to "roll"? I mean, imaging if random non-experts had a journalist fired for every failed-prediction or embarrasingly wrong policy analysis penned in an op-ed? There would be no journalists left !

Journalists for the most part are attention-whoring nobodies with no expertise in any particular subject, who hide behind overly aggressive and opinionated words. Watch pundits on any news channel, or read any massively circulated news source and it's pretty clear to confirm what I'm saying. They jiggle their jowls with such empty emotion and intensity. May be harsh, but I think it's pretty accurate.

Equating "journalists" with "pundits" is completely wrong. Sarah Palin, James Carville, et cetera are pundits (among other things), not journalists.

Re: Does Snapchat's CEO Need to Go?

#69

Post by BlackDeath3 »

lotso wrote: post #65
BlackDeath3 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For an application that... does what? Shares short-lived picture/video messages? Maybe I don't quite get Snapchat, but color me unimpressed.

Things people say at early stages of tech companies: Facebook... it's just a way to create a profile of yourself and share pictures and messages. Color me unimpressed! Tumblr... it's just a basic blogging platform... nothing new? Color me unimpressed! Twitter... it's a 140 character status updates? Color me unimpressed!

I'm still unimpressed by all three of those things (technically speaking). Perhaps they've got some cool stuff going on underneath somewhere, but as technologies, as whole, they just seem sort of lackluster to me for much the reasoning that you've mocked above. Perhaps I'm simply an outlier.

Assuming that a startup's early state is little indication of what it eventually turns into, why would somebody invest in any one over another? I cannot imagine a whole lot of people saying "well, this Snapchat thing looks really stupid now, but hey, who knows, it may be big one day!"

Re: Does Snapchat's CEO Need to Go?

#70

Post by cortesoft »

spamizbad wrote: post #44
001sky wrote: post #3

Where does media punditry get off on making absolutist calls for heads to "roll"? I mean, imaging if random non-experts had a journalist fired for every failed-prediction or embarrasingly wrong policy analysis penned in an op-ed? There would be no journalists left !

For a meritocracy to work there must be consequences for both good and bad actions. A pundit's merit is judged by their page views; not by their correctness. Their salary is based off their readership. If their readership wants to be fed convenient lies that reenforce their world view that's their perogative.

And a CEO's merit is judged by their company's market value. Has this hurt their market cap?
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