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Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

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Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#201

Post by st3v3r »

curiousgal wrote: post #45
traviswingo wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alright, touche. Facebook is actually worth what the market claims it to be worth, because of the large amount of people in one place, all willing to tell the world exactly what their interests are. Its a marketing heaven. Snapchat might be worth a lot, but I'm just sick of companies like this being valued so high, simply because they provide literally no benefit to society. If Snapchat went down tomorrow, would it r…

I don't know why you're getting downvoted but you are absolutely right.

Cause it's just another "hurr durr, kids these days!" rant with no actual substance.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#202

Post by kirykl »

sotojuan wrote: post #100
wtvanhest wrote: post #39

Every single person here seems negative about Snapchat. I am 30+, use it occasionally, and see more and more of my older friends signing up. Especially those friends far away from the echo chamber. This fundraising feels smart for investors who want a great return and for the company to use to get to an IPO. If you don't use Snapchat, or haven't used it in a few years, it is probably time you take a second look.

People on tech forums are typically negative about social media apps and platforms. It's pretty interesting.

[Many respectable technologists said that they weren't going to stand for this -- partly because it was a debasement of technology, but mostly because they didn't get invited to those sort of funding series]

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#203

Post by MichaelGG »

gjolund wrote: post #159
ramenmeal wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about snapchat is useless? Or is this just typical "damn kids these days" speak? The app is an incredible form of communication, and there is a reason people prefer it to other mediums.

What exactly are people communicating? If snapchat shutdown tomorrow would anyone actually care, or would they immediately shift to the next best platform? Compared to say a public utility, car manufacturer, global shipping company, etc. There are real problems in the world, and snapchat doesn't solve any of them. There are real companies trying to solve these problems, and snapchat is worth more than most of them. O…

What problem is HBO solving, other than entertaining people? How is Snapchat any different? At a minimum, it's entertaining. At best it's "connecting people" and so on.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#204

Post by MichaelGG »

dboshardy wrote: post #148
heavenlyhash wrote: post #143

1.8B. 1,800 Million, right? Stop me when the math goes wrong. Divided into bundles of 200k: 9000x. Let's say each member of a team costs 200k/yr. High for some, low for others, whatever. 1.8B dollars is enough money for a team of OVER NINE THOUSAND people. What... exactly is taking that much effort, here? What is this money fueling? I honestly boggle to imagine.

That math holds if they are planning to only spend money on hiring those people for 1 year only. More realistically, the money is probably for tech overhead. Server space, software licensing, money for keeping all their servers working for a while (support, replacement servers/drives) etc.

Not being adversarial: What kind of software licensing is Snapchat paying? Dev tools, ok. Some BI/reporting stuff? I'd imagine everything else would be open source, right?

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#205

Post by gjolund »

qq66 wrote: post #192
gjolund wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly are people communicating? If snapchat shutdown tomorrow would anyone actually care, or would they immediately shift to the next best platform? Compared to say a public utility, car manufacturer, global shipping company, etc. There are real problems in the world, and snapchat doesn't solve any of them. There are real companies trying to solve these problems, and snapchat is worth more than most of them. O…

> If snapchat shutdown tomorrow would anyone actually care, or would they immediately shift to the next best platform? You can say this about a lot of great companies. Toyota shuts down tomorrow, I buy a Honda instead. Sure, I wanted the Toyota, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. UPS shuts down tomorrow, I use FedEx. Apple shuts down, I use Android. Starbucks shuts down, I go to Peet's.

Those companies employ hundreds of thousands of people and entire supply chains.

Snapchat employ's next to no one in comparison and is worth more than entire industries.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#206

Post by jtblin »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #187
nostrademons wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought Facebook was way overvalued at $15B when they had zero in revenue. Now they've got about $20B in annual revenue and are worth $340B.

It's almost a good comeback. Yet, Facebook had obvious ways to monetize it's data plus lots of data types to monetize. It was inherent in its design. Also, semi-proven by MySpace. What is comparable for SnapChat? Seems more contrained.

I remember hearing exactly the same about Facebook and even ... Google. Can't find the link anymore but there was a famous article from the NYT (IIRC) saying Google problem was finding a business model. Time will tell for snapchat.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#207

Post by dopamean »

redthrowaway wrote: post #195
gjolund wrote: post #131

The only real value of Snapchat is that now I dont have to scroll past the innane content snapchat is used for on other social networks. Im not going to say snapchat is or isnt worth $20b. I am going to say that I am sad that so much energy and money is being thrown at such a trivial application. Im a software engineer, and i like solving real problems. I cant imagine working at snapchat and trying to motivate myself…

Some engineers like working on hard engineering problems. Others like working on products used by millions of people, and making that product as good as it can be. The existence of the one doesn't invalidate the other. There's plenty of room in this industry for both types.

I suspect that connecting 10s of millions of people to each other to share ephemeral photos in real time actually does pose some interesting engineering problems.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#208

Post by gjolund »

beambot wrote: post #196
gjolund wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked on: * Liver transplant protocols * Military VR for PTSD therapy * Early R&D for self driving cars * Long range point to point wifi systems being used in Africa * VR motion capture studio used in the most of the Marvel movies * Built several prototype zero net energy homes * Built several solar concentration array in Haiti with a team after the earthquakes * Tidal energy generation prototypes The list goes…

Many software engineers (esp. at a web/comms company) are going to be working on similar frontend and backend problems -- and the fact that these guys are working at SnapChat doesn't marginalize their contribution to the world. They're working on one of the most-utilized, fastest growing communication platforms on earth. If anything, I'd say their "problems" are probably as interesting as any you've listed. They coul…

I didn't say "other peoples' work is shit and meaningless".

I did say I would have a hard time motivating myself to work on something so trivial. It is why I turned down the job.

Scale is a solved problem, their whole infrastructure is based on Google. They brag about having 0 ops employees.

What are they actually building in house? A UI, some photo filters, and a mobile photo app.

Not worth $20b and not worth a couple years of my professional life.

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#209

Post by gjolund »

qq66 wrote: post #193
gjolund wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've worked on: * Liver transplant protocols * Military VR for PTSD therapy * Early R&D for self driving cars * Long range point to point wifi systems being used in Africa * VR motion capture studio used in the most of the Marvel movies * Built several prototype zero net energy homes * Built several solar concentration array in Haiti with a team after the earthquakes * Tidal energy generation prototypes The list goes…

And maybe someone who just got a liver transplant that you enabled announces it to their friends and family on Snapchat :)

Totally fine, but what had the bigger impact? What was the problem actually worth solving?

Re: Snapchat raised $1.8B in a Series F round

#210

Post by vgt »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #97
chejazi wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It can't hurt that the aforementioned companies, however unprofitable, don't need to spend as much on ops.

You're trading ops costs to be locked into a platform. Does that matter? Probably not if you're targeting being acquired by Google. If you intend to eventually move to your own equipment, it does matter . There is no such thing as no ops. Only someone else doing ops, no more than I can have TensorFlow write code instead of developers.

Your fear is not invalid. That said, one can make the argument that speed of innovation trumps everything, and partnering with the best innovator is the most important thing when innovating yourself. This is akin to not wanting to ever date for fear of eventual breakup...

Some folks discuss this more elegantly - http://www.cloudtp.com/2016/01/21/dont-let-vendor-lock-in-fe...

You make a good point on No-Ops vs Ops. I think it's a gradient. I also think that Snapchat is on the far far left (on No-Ops edge) against virtually any other large-scale technology company in the world, Google included (singe Google is Snapchat's Ops largely), largely because of the nature of Google AppEngine.

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