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Twitter may receive formal bid, suitors said to include Salesforce and Google

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Re: Twitter may receive formal bid, suitors said to include Salesforce and Google

#291

Post by gordon_freeman »

briholt wrote: post #129
imagist wrote: post #85

IMO, Twitter is the poster child for the tech bubble. They have users, which is their only claim to viability, but notably, they have never made a profit. Currently valued at around $10 billion with 350 million active users, that's about $29 per user. You'd be hard-pressed to find an investor so foolish that they would invest $29 in each of their users and hope to make it back if it were stated in those terms, but pe…

Agreed on poor finances. But Twitter has one thing that no one else has - they are in the center of the zeitgeist. Every political candidate is on Twitter. Every news network discusses Twitter happenings everyday. NFL broadcasts list players' Twitter handles. Half the commercials on TV advertise hashtags. South Park just did a whole episode about Twitter. The cost to embed your brand in the minds of Americans like th…

and people like Elon Musk and Tim Cook are on Twitter. It's incredibly interesting to read what they do and say day-to-day. I'd call myself a passive user because I only read notification on my phone if few of these people tweet something.

Re: Twitter may receive formal bid, suitors said to include Salesforce and Google

#292

Post by acdha »

segmondy wrote: post #199
scosman wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be careful conflating "never made a profit" with not having a business. They made $710M in revenue last quarter, up 48% yoy. Their expenses might be high, but they can address that. Companies like Amazon didn't make a profit for years, and are rightfully quite valuable in the eyes of the market. A $29 valuation per MAU is low if anything. Facebook is almost 10x that (and deserves to be). Early stage startups often ge…

Why the hell is their expense that high? 350 million users, sure it's a lot. Plus they have to store the messages for a long time and it's not like a text message but more like a group chat. Still, most of their expense can't be going towards their tech stack but headcount. Anyone that takes over the company is going to be doing massive layoffs. They should do it their self and become profitable or else someone is go…

Every time I've looked at their reports, stock-based compensation is significantly greater than the total net loss. It seems like the classic tech bubble company where there's a solid large company which is at risk because they're spending like a profitable huge company.

Re: Twitter may receive formal bid, suitors said to include Salesforce and Google

#293

Post by freyir »

briholt wrote: post #129
imagist wrote: post #85

IMO, Twitter is the poster child for the tech bubble. They have users, which is their only claim to viability, but notably, they have never made a profit. Currently valued at around $10 billion with 350 million active users, that's about $29 per user. You'd be hard-pressed to find an investor so foolish that they would invest $29 in each of their users and hope to make it back if it were stated in those terms, but pe…

Agreed on poor finances. But Twitter has one thing that no one else has - they are in the center of the zeitgeist. Every political candidate is on Twitter. Every news network discusses Twitter happenings everyday. NFL broadcasts list players' Twitter handles. Half the commercials on TV advertise hashtags. South Park just did a whole episode about Twitter. The cost to embed your brand in the minds of Americans like th…

Harambe's at the center of the zeitgeist. You wouldn't invest in Harambe.

Re: Twitter may receive formal bid, suitors said to include Salesforce and Google

#294

Post by vit05 »

imagist wrote: post #121
gxs wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People always write them off, but I do wonder if it's more of an emotional write off or the fact that as non twitter users, they refuse to see value because they personally don't see value. I'm not a twitter user or advocate but: 106.31M 316.93M 664.89M 1.4B 2.22B That's their revenue over the past 5 years. Their R&D cost last year was over 800M. I'm not saying they are Google, I'm not saying they are LinkedIn, but t…

The only reason revenue, users, scale, investor love, patents, staff, infrastructure, etc. matter is that they usually are indicators of potential for profit. Profit is the entire point of investing in a company. But the greater indicator of potential for profit here is that Twitter has existed for 10 years and has never turned a profit. Given this, I think that revenue, users, scale, investor love, patents, staff, i…

I think Salesforce have never had profit. Neither Youtube for Google. The problem with twitter is that people do not believe they could make big money alone and for a long time without be destroyed for someone else in a garage. They still see a company that needs a cash cow that could financial the cost of innovation.

Re: Twitter may receive formal bid, suitors said to include Salesforce and Google

#295

Post by ravenstine »

ravenstine wrote: post #98
imagist wrote: post #85

IMO, Twitter is the poster child for the tech bubble. They have users, which is their only claim to viability, but notably, they have never made a profit. Currently valued at around $10 billion with 350 million active users, that's about $29 per user. You'd be hard-pressed to find an investor so foolish that they would invest $29 in each of their users and hope to make it back if it were stated in those terms, but pe…

> They have users, which is their only claim to viability, but notably, they have never made a profit. I am SO glad that someone else realizes this. Many journalists, and lots of regular people subsequently, mistake revenue for profit.

Not sure why I am being downvoted. Is Webster's Dictionary too offensive to some?

Re: Twitter may receive formal bid, suitors said to include Salesforce and Google

#296

Post by cpsempek »

Is Google the suitor, or, is Alphabet the suitor? The article says Google, but this could be out of habit. I am not sure that answering my question changes much about the news. But it might say something about how Alphabet views Twitter based on who they decide owns the acquisition and where Twitter would fit within the company (as subsidiary or under Google).

Re: Twitter may receive formal bid, suitors said to include Salesforce and Google

#297

Post by brian-armstrong »

heydenberk wrote: post #201
segmondy wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the hell is their expense that high? 350 million users, sure it's a lot. Plus they have to store the messages for a long time and it's not like a text message but more like a group chat. Still, most of their expense can't be going towards their tech stack but headcount. Anyone that takes over the company is going to be doing massive layoffs. They should do it their self and become profitable or else someone is go…

> Anyone that takes over the company is going to be doing massive layoffs. Rapidly-growing tech behemoths like Google can afford to acquihire hundred of engineers and, eventually, assign them to other work.

Many of those employees will be on the ad platform. Google already has a good ad platform...

Re: Twitter may receive formal bid, suitors said to include Salesforce and Google

#298

Post by Nicholas_C »

0x37 wrote: post #87
hornbaker wrote: post #13

My bet is GOOG. They need a streaming newsfeed product in which to insert ads.

What is this inane trend here on HN of referring to companies with the names they are registered to stock exhange?

Shorthand.

Re: Twitter may receive formal bid, suitors said to include Salesforce and Google

#300

Post by chetanahuja »

revelation wrote: post #284
BinaryIdiot wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe. But at the same time, with over 3,000 employees and a small set of products, that's not only a lot to take on but much of which is likely redundant. With so many surely they hold a fair amount of under performers as well.

You would think that, but honestly the site is broken more often than not for me. Right this very moment all pic.twitter links are just redirecting to "https//" URLs. And that's in an incognito tab.

I haven't done a formal study but their t.co url shortener (which is forced on anyone who posts any url) is often broken or extremely slow. Twitter seems like a company where hardcore systems engineers probably take a backseat to "visionary product managers"
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