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Goodbye, Twilio

blog.miguelgrinberg.com

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Re: Goodbye, Twilio

#151

Post by Johnny555 »

fassssst wrote: post #79
toni_bk wrote: post #13

Why can’t a company just be happy making several billion dollars a year in profits? Always about growth, growth, growth!

You could ask the same of yourself, presumably you have a retirement account invested in things that grow…

A retirement account is based on the premise that its owner is going to stop working and adding money to it so they can draw money out of it for the rest of their life.

Companies don't generally have the same long term goal to stop earning revenue and ride out their savings until they die.

Re: Goodbye, Twilio

#152

Post by sethammons »

louwrentius wrote: post #141
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #103

There’s nothing surprising here. This is a typical cycle for a venture backed technology business. There’s just nothing else to say here other than this is 100% expected outcome if you decide to build a product on venture capital money, which requires an exit and an increasingly large exit to the point where you IPO. Unless you avoid this structural pathway, you will be 100% guaranteed to do this. I am unaware of a v…

It’s funny to me that I’m reading this while listening to “Abolish Silicon Valley” by Wendy Liu. I don’t think any CEO can be moral if your primary obligation is “shareholder value”. Or in plain language: making other people more rich at the cost of others. I’m just happy the guy got out when the company didn’t align with his values anymore and he has the means to afford himself a conscience.

> making other people more rich at the cost of others

Not everything is zero sum. There is a reason that when you purchase something both sides say thank you.

Re: Goodbye, Twilio

#153

Post by AndrewKemendo »

el_nahual wrote: post #148
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #103

There’s nothing surprising here. This is a typical cycle for a venture backed technology business. There’s just nothing else to say here other than this is 100% expected outcome if you decide to build a product on venture capital money, which requires an exit and an increasingly large exit to the point where you IPO. Unless you avoid this structural pathway, you will be 100% guaranteed to do this. I am unaware of a v…

How do stock buybacks enrich investors at the cost of employees ? They are (almost identical) to a dividend, which yes, enriches shareholders but a) that's kind of the point of a business b) especially in startups employees are often shareholders as well, and meaningfully so c) even if they weren't, how do they hurt employees?

[flagged]

Re: Goodbye, Twilio

#154

Post by alberth »

jeffiel wrote: post #36

Thank you Miguel for all of your contributions to Twilio over the past four years, and I hope your next gig is just as rewarding! For all those interested in why we acquired Segment, and are focused on the integration of data and communications -- several years ago, we came to the conclusion that the world doesn't need more communications, it needs better communications. More relevant. More effective. As a developer,…

Hi Jeff

If I understand the page for Fraud Guard correctly, this appears to cost money.

Seems like Twilio should be filtering spam (a) by default / auto-enabled for all and (b) at no cost to the user.

Much like how spam is included & auto enabled for all (and free) from Gmail/Outlook/etc.

Re: Goodbye, Twilio

#155

Post by sethammons »

afavour wrote: post #106
paxys wrote: post #97

"The company was great when it was just engineers, but then they hired account managers and sales reps and business people and marketers who ruined everything." Common refrain from developers at SaaS companies who don't realize that the party they were enjoying all these years was directly funded by VC dollars, and these other people who they hate so much in fact do critical jobs and are necessary for converting all…

> viable business A developer run and developer focused business could absolutely be a viable business. But it wouldn’t be the 10x hockey stick growth company venture capitalists demand and ultimately they hold the power here. So we get the inevitable.

Where does the money come from? Customers don't magically appear. Any, and I mean _any_ example you can dream of, will require something more than just the product.

Price, promotion, product, and distribution. You need all four.

Re: Goodbye, Twilio

#156

Post by blobbers »

I'm curious why this got upvoted on hackernews. Isn't this some rando- employee (no offense Miguel Grinberg) that joined an established medium sized software company and then is moving on after spending a fairly short time there. Did this particular engineer move the needle on their product somehow?

How is this in any way "news" worthy.

Re: Goodbye, Twilio

#158

Post by ramraj07 »

rewmie wrote: post #108
paxys wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can say the same for engineers, and really anyone else.

A startup lives and dies by the engineers. Without them there is no product. This very case documents how engineers created value only to get new arrivals whose net contribution is non-positive, to the point they effectively drive out the talent that made everything possible.

How wrong can someone be? Unless the startups core proposition is some advanced algorithm (like openai), something very hard to replicate, it absolutely does not matter how great their engineers are. They merely need to be barely competent. Of course, better engineers means more efficiency and a different structure but that never fails a startup. Bad growth does. But growth numbers expected of VC backed startups can fail it. Thus the factors that fail or succeed most startups is not the engineeers.

Re: Goodbye, Twilio

#159

Post by throwaway675309 »

paxys wrote: post #105
rewmie wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (...) and these other people who they hate so much in fact do critical jobs and (...) Just because someone is hired for a position of a sales rep/account manager/business people, that does not mean they walk over water. Those positions attract plenty of types whose primary skill is to leverage their soft skills talent to latch themselves to a organization while delivering no added value at all.

You can say the same for engineers, and really anyone else.

Perhaps, but I would argue that the door in order to be able to get access to these positions is more heavily barred when the interview process can include clinically quantifiable demonstrable competency in the form of architectural whiteboarding, algorithm design etc.

It's more difficult to assess and measure soft skills that you would find in sales positions.

Re: Goodbye, Twilio

#160

Post by jmacd »

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #103

There’s nothing surprising here. This is a typical cycle for a venture backed technology business. There’s just nothing else to say here other than this is 100% expected outcome if you decide to build a product on venture capital money, which requires an exit and an increasingly large exit to the point where you IPO. Unless you avoid this structural pathway, you will be 100% guaranteed to do this. I am unaware of a v…

Venture capital has been long gone from Twilio at this point. It's a public company and no matter what the history of how the company raised the capital to build its business initially, it is simply acting as a public company now. Had they chosen to stay private and continue to use venture capital, they may not have had to reposition the way they have. See: Stripe.

Plenty of privately owned businesses IPO and become subject to the same forces. Less than 50% of publicly listed companies are VC backed.

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