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Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

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Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#181

Post by tshaddox »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #173
acchow wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wanna build a video game that teaches developers how to code and use Twilio? Let's try it! Wanna build an AI application with Tony Hawk and have Tony Hawk debug the code live on stage? Sure! These are the strange effects of ZIRP and infinite QE. Many companies never had to care at all about profit and could just do things "for fun", and still see valuations skyrocket as long as they hired more people. What a time.

In my 32 years in the industry the best performing companies always did these things regardless of the macroeconomic climate. It’s when you ceded leadership to the accountants and shifted gears to maintenance mode that companies stopped growing. You never did these things for fun, you did these things because they had some knock on effect that made it potentially worth it, and in a portfolio of many small bets some w…

> In my 32 years in the industry the best performing companies always did these things regardless of the macroeconomic climate.

I think the question is more about whether doing these things caused the company financial success, or whether the company's financial success caused them to do these things. It strikes me as plausible that it's almost always the latter, even if the company's financial success isn't attributable solely to the macroeconomic climate.

Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#182

Post by maerF0x0 »

Nextgrid wrote: post #20
pylua wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The stock price has been lackluster unfortunately. I’m not sure as to why.

Stock price isn’t a great indicator of product quality though. Stock price requires endless growth which is unsustainable.

No. Stock price requires higher per share values.

One can continuously grow a stock if they reduce the shares outstanding.

That being said iirc buy backs have notoriously all gone to executives. Essentially they buy back, and then award themselves options to re-dilute, but cannot readily find a source for that. So maybe incorrect.

Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#183

Post by dalyons »

walls wrote: post #124
gphil wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that Twilio is not profitable. They wouldn't need to show a hockey stick if they were. Investor-subsidized, non-profitable companies have to sell growth to their investors because they have no other fundamental to point to.

Maybe a notification API provider doesn't need to be spending a ton of money on "AI".

instead of posting a poorly informed take, you should go and have a look at their list of product offerings. They havent been just a "notification API" for a long time now.

Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#184

Post by Solvency »

Aurornis wrote: post #180
fnordpiglet wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my 32 years in the industry the best performing companies always did these things regardless of the macroeconomic climate. It’s when you ceded leadership to the accountants and shifted gears to maintenance mode that companies stopped growing. You never did these things for fun, you did these things because they had some knock on effect that made it potentially worth it, and in a portfolio of many small bets some w…

> In my 32 years in the industry the best performing companies always did these things regardless of the macroeconomic climate. My anecdote, FWIW, is that some of the worst performing startups do these tricks too. There's something about flashy events and boondoggles that sound good on LinkedIn that draws bad founders into spending waaay too much on parties and fun activities. Stripe obviously isn't in that category,…

Seriously. Half of the Silicon Valley show was lampooning this corporate excess of frivolous indulgence.

Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#185

Post by jaredklewis »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #173
acchow wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wanna build a video game that teaches developers how to code and use Twilio? Let's try it! Wanna build an AI application with Tony Hawk and have Tony Hawk debug the code live on stage? Sure! These are the strange effects of ZIRP and infinite QE. Many companies never had to care at all about profit and could just do things "for fun", and still see valuations skyrocket as long as they hired more people. What a time.

In my 32 years in the industry the best performing companies always did these things regardless of the macroeconomic climate. It’s when you ceded leadership to the accountants and shifted gears to maintenance mode that companies stopped growing. You never did these things for fun, you did these things because they had some knock on effect that made it potentially worth it, and in a portfolio of many small bets some w…

> In my 32 years in the industry the best performing companies always did these things regardless of the macroeconomic climate.

What companies?

Some of the best performing public tech companies of the past 30 years include Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Nvidia, and Microsoft.You can get some variety in this list by varying the exact start and end dates, but certainly the first 4 are going to make most lists. Others like Google and Facebook handily beat the total market.

Certainly a lot of companies that never went public (Instagram, WhatsApp, Credit Karma, etc...) performed very well for their investors when they got acquired. And some companies that since going public haven't been blockbuster successes, like Snowflake, still were probably very lucrative for their VCs and other early investors.

Anyway, I don't feel like most of the really great performing companies that come to my mind are particularly "fun," but maybe I maybe I'm not paying attention and/or don't know because I don't work at them.

Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#186

Post by idopmstuff »

ctz wrote: post #118
karim wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One year into it you knew the company was going to fail yet you stayed on for 3 more years? What happened there?

I'm not the OP, but agree with their assessment and stayed 3.5 years despite that. For me, the reason was the vesting schedule: 4 years with a 1 year cliff.

But why would you want to vest a bunch of options/shares that you think will decline substantially in value over your tenure there?

Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#187

Post by maerF0x0 »

adam_arthur wrote: post #67
maerF0x0 wrote: post #10

https://archive.is/8Ffn4 Keep in mind his voting structure changed in May meaning he lost some shareholder power. > Its use of supervoting shares, which gives CEO and co-founder Jeff Lawson a voting stake of 21.8% even though he owns only 3.7% of the stock, [1] No derogatory remarks intended to Jeff, Jeff certainly has had great moments, but Kho is also a fantastic leader and capital allocator, who's made some truly…

Any exec who actually tries to sell the stock high, and buy it low is a winner in my book. Most just follow the crowd and do shareholder dilutive buybacks at nosebleed valuations. If you can buy a long duration US treasury yielding more than twice what your shares yield, maybe stop to think before doing any buybacks. Though I've written it up to mostly short term-ism towards increasing their own compensation through…

Reminded me of another point on the board for Kho, He was smart enough to grab a billion in 10yr bonds at like 3% which was genius for the growth rate (if you can grow money at 10% then you should take every penny you can get below that).

https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights...

The only party he missed was putting our cash reserves in BTC. (which is an inside joke). It would have made the money like $4-5B based on the time of the suggestion. I think investors will be happy to hear he flatly outright said no to that. It looked like a missed opportunity (at $64k)... until it didn't. (back at $16k)

Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#188

Post by Solvency »

swozey wrote: post #167
hnfong wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's big company and there's BIG company. # Market caps: Target 64.99B Sony ~116B (I think) TI 152B BMW ~70B Fedex 62B Mitsubishi ~70B Exxon 396B Home Depot 343B Siemens 141B P&G 349B 3M 60B Nestle ~290B Broadcom 501B ... Amazon 1520B Tesla 750B The sum of the market cap of the first group of companies is ~2.068T USD, while the sum of the second group is ~2.270T. And of course the CEO of Tesla is(?) allegedly the…

lmao Teslas market cap is such a joke. 750bn, 10x higher than BMW while I see tens of millions more BMWs on the road and the BMW brand has astronomically more staying power as brand recognition. Wild. Nobody would be surprised if Tesla flopped but we know BMW, a company over 100 years old won't flop. I can't imagine being offered a choice between owning (the company) Tesla or BMW and picking Tesla. edit: Tesla did 4.…

Shhh you must not rain on techbro's fanatical obsession with fantasy market caps. It's the only aspiration validating their particular niche of career.

Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#189

Post by drzaiusapelord »

fnordpiglet wrote: post #173
acchow wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Wanna build a video game that teaches developers how to code and use Twilio? Let's try it! Wanna build an AI application with Tony Hawk and have Tony Hawk debug the code live on stage? Sure! These are the strange effects of ZIRP and infinite QE. Many companies never had to care at all about profit and could just do things "for fun", and still see valuations skyrocket as long as they hired more people. What a time.

In my 32 years in the industry the best performing companies always did these things regardless of the macroeconomic climate. It’s when you ceded leadership to the accountants and shifted gears to maintenance mode that companies stopped growing. You never did these things for fun, you did these things because they had some knock on effect that made it potentially worth it, and in a portfolio of many small bets some w…

Great comment. ZIRP is endless stock buybacks and $boomer_rock_band or $expensive_celebrity speaking at your conference. Those are capital owner and executive benefits and don't drive the product or curate new customers.

Tony Hawk at this event is just a marketing stunt and his celebrity can be beneficial to drive engagement, impress potential customers, keep existing customers happy, help with recruiting, etc. Those stunts can get incredible attention. Look at how common celebrities in advertising and endorsements are.

Stock buybacks, having the Moody Blues play your annual meeting or the Rich-dad-poor-dad guy give a speech to execs and play down to their biases doesn't drive marketing or the product. Its what execs enjoy personally and burn through money for these entitlements. Instead this money should be used to give raises to the working class.

Also I'd substitute accountants for MBA's in your comment.

Re: Jeff Lawson steps down as CEO of Twilio

#190

Post by drzaiusapelord »

ctvo wrote: post #178
fnordpiglet wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my 32 years in the industry the best performing companies always did these things regardless of the macroeconomic climate. It’s when you ceded leadership to the accountants and shifted gears to maintenance mode that companies stopped growing. You never did these things for fun, you did these things because they had some knock on effect that made it potentially worth it, and in a portfolio of many small bets some w…

> In my 32 years in the industry the best performing companies always did these things regardless of the macroeconomic climate. Agreed. Creative, high performing people don't do well in a work environment that's structured like a regional bank. Valve Software -- incredibly profitable, high performing and private company, did fun things like hire economists (and then later Greek prime minister) to study and simulate v…

Just a small correction, Yanis was the minister of finance, under the PM, who at the time was Alexis Tsipras.
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