Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

npr.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 809 posts

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#121

Post by toomuchtodo »

kareemm wrote: post #115
dstaley wrote: post #110

It's still crazy to me that a $16B company can't make the financials of a true native app for Windows and macOS work. Microsoft has some real soul searching to do to fix up Windows development and make it easier and more attractive to companies. Thankfully it seems like both Microsoft and Apple are at least trying to make things easier. Apple will probably do the best with Project Catalyst (I mean, they already got T…

Maybe the lesson is that a decent solution to a painful problem and great sales and marketing are a good recipe for success.

It is a recipe for market share. Profitability and a realistic valuation is yet to be seen.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#123

Post by fiblye »

pm90 wrote: post #118
fiblye wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My question is where the hell is that money going? That money is all the cash flow in some entire minor industries. It’s the GDP of some minor lower/mid-economy nations’ cities. Their losses are equal to half the entire GDP of Palau. Maybe I’m detached. But I don’t understand the cash flow in chat apps today. It’s absolutely bizarre amounts of money for something that can and will easily be replaced in a few years, a…

Why is it so bizzare? Do you think that Palau has enough people engaged in producing goods or services that deserve more than their current GDP? I think comparing the valuations of a US company HQ'd in one of the most expensive cities in the world, that has created a tool that is used by nearly all organizations around the world for communication is well worth the crazy valuation.

I’m not talking about their supposed $16b value. I’m wondering where the money they’re actually spending is going.

They’ve lost nearly $150 million in a year. How? What does that money even go to? Even paying their devs incredibly generous wages and benefits, server costs, advertising, deals with businesses, etc, I can’t imagine the losses being that big. It’s insane amounts of money to burn through.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#124

Post by pnathan »

Spooky23 wrote: post #96
caust1c wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their moat is sticky? They were simply the first company to do hosted chat well enough that it didn't constantly piss people off. I wouldn't call that a sticky moat.

They haven’t fucked up hosted chat yet, which is the benchmark. There is no chat/IM client on the market today that is superior to the pinnacle, which was circa-2000 AOL Instant Messenger. Every platform gets worse every year, except slack.

> They haven’t fucked up hosted chat yet, which is the benchmark.

well put - and - even more so: hosted business chat. all they have to do is keep on keeping on.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#125

Post by sgustard »

colechristensen wrote: post #89
Spivak wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is MySQL just a frontend on a filesystem?

Remove the pejorative 'just' and the answer is an obvious uncontroversial yes. MySQL is a nicer alternative to managing really big CSV flat files on a filesystem. Facebook is an RSS, address book, message share. Etc.

Airplanes are just hollowed out birds, and so on.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#126

Post by dexterdog »

theturtletalks wrote: post #13

Their valuation stems from MAUs and majority are on the generous free tier. Do investors really think they can monetize the free users?

And how many of the free users are the same people? I am active on 7 or 8 slacks (all free) with at least 5 or 6 different emails. Sure they can easily link my from my device, but do they when they can inflate numbers?

The thing that drives me nuts is the pricing model. Why don't they just let users pay for themselves? Then I could be paid on all of the slacks that I use for $10/mo or whatever they charge.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#127

Post by hombre_fatal »

stevehiehn wrote: post #94

Crazy, sometimes I picture the creators of HipChat laying in bed staring the ceiling mumbling: 'but, but, we did thi..'

We tried HipChat for a whole day before bouncing. It was so bad. Had hilariously poor UX, using commands like \code to get a single line of monospaced text, iirc.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#128

Post by scarface74 »

dstaley wrote: post #110

It's still crazy to me that a $16B company can't make the financials of a true native app for Windows and macOS work. Microsoft has some real soul searching to do to fix up Windows development and make it easier and more attractive to companies. Thankfully it seems like both Microsoft and Apple are at least trying to make things easier. Apple will probably do the best with Project Catalyst (I mean, they already got T…

Slack is a $16 billion dollar company on paper but still not profitable and showing no signs of profitability. It’s not like Slack is printing money.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#129

Post by ShorsHammer »

pm90 wrote: post #118
fiblye wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My question is where the hell is that money going? That money is all the cash flow in some entire minor industries. It’s the GDP of some minor lower/mid-economy nations’ cities. Their losses are equal to half the entire GDP of Palau. Maybe I’m detached. But I don’t understand the cash flow in chat apps today. It’s absolutely bizarre amounts of money for something that can and will easily be replaced in a few years, a…

Why is it so bizzare? Do you think that Palau has enough people engaged in producing goods or services that deserve more than their current GDP? I think comparing the valuations of a US company HQ'd in one of the most expensive cities in the world, that has created a tool that is used by nearly all organizations around the world for communication is well worth the crazy valuation.

Since when has a company making poor over-priced decisions ever justified a better valuation? It's the complete opposite.

If Airbus decided to pay twice as much for planes would you say they should be valued higher?

While there is intangible benefits that come from deciding to setup shop in one of the most expensive cities on Earth I'm far from convinced a messenger app company couldn't thrive elsewhere.

What they offer is not unique nor difficult to create. Doubt they'll ever manage to pull in $1B a year to justify that price, the required business model for it would have their customers looking elsewhere overnight.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#130

Post by marcrosoft »

dstaley wrote: post #110

It's still crazy to me that a $16B company can't make the financials of a true native app for Windows and macOS work. Microsoft has some real soul searching to do to fix up Windows development and make it easier and more attractive to companies. Thankfully it seems like both Microsoft and Apple are at least trying to make things easier. Apple will probably do the best with Project Catalyst (I mean, they already got T…

Maybe because the real future is web apps and has been for more than a decade now.
Post reply on HN