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Goodbye, Twilio

blog.miguelgrinberg.com

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291–300 of 353 posts

Re: Goodbye, Twilio

#291

Post by yed »

rsync wrote: post #222
jeffiel wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this phase we have to talk both to the business and to developers. Only talking to developers isn’t savvy or smart. AWS etc do the same thing. We can have good APIs and make a compelling case to the business why they should pay for it. I agree that sometimes our engagement messaging isn’t quite right for developers. As a developer, I prefer more technical and matter of fact marketing of products. But interestingly…

"At this phase we have to talk both to the business and to developers." How can I send my wife a grocery list, with a twiml bin, and not register a business use-case and provide a US EIN for A2P 10DLC (along with example messages and opt-out mechanisms) ? Haha - just kidding. I know I can't do that. ... and as long as we have you here, what, pray tell, will Twilio do with the pages and pages of use-cases and howtos f…

For what it’s worth, this is driven by federal regulations and carrier requirements, not by Twilio itself.

Re: Goodbye, Twilio

#292

Post by dheera »

jmacd wrote: post #160
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…

I think they were saying that a investor-backed company only has a pathway to either (a) acquisition, likely by a public company, or (b) going public. Investors need (a) or (b) to get a payout, that's their business model, that's the reason they invest in your company.

If you avoid the venture investor route, you can avoid both outcomes (a) and (b), keep the company privately owned, just stay awesome and customer-friendly forever, and avoid being forced to eventually prioritize shareholders over customers.

Re: Goodbye, Twilio

#293

Post by anon-3988 »

rapind wrote: post #280
anon-3988 wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What he said that "its hard to prove if we are still peasants" is wrong. But you cannot argue that we human have benefitted at the cost of nature? Also, >Nobody cares about your stupid degrowth ideology that advocates for death and people to be poorer. Is also not true. Having a 1km lawn is excess. Flying solo on a private plane to visit an office halfway across the world for 1-2 days every other week is excess. No s…

> What he said that "its hard to prove if we are still peasants" is wrong. I think this depends on how you classify peasant. If we can agree that it's about income inequality, and not quality of life, then there was a study done comparing income inequality in the late eighteenth century to current day, which concluded that "Incomes were much more equally distributed in colonial America than in America today, or in ot…

Why does income inequality matter? Why does it matter that some people are way, way richer than the other. This correlates with poorer quality of life, sure, but income inequality itself is not really that important. Calling the modern middle-class human a peasant is quite misguided imo. It is important to acknowledge that we have fared much better than our ancestors.

Is it a problem, say, if we all achieved nirvana but some achieved better nirvana? Must we rebel against them too?

Re: Goodbye, Twilio

#294

Post by friendzis »

VirusNewbie wrote: post #182
reaperman wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stock buybacks represent excess profits which otherwise could be used for employee bonuses or salary raises. There's a lot of room for argument here, because it's not clear if in the absence of stock buybacks, that excess profits wouldn't go more directly into the pockets of the owners via direct capital withdrawal. But it's not an entirely invalid viewpoint. There really is a lot of room for reasonable minds to disa…

Stock price increase benefits workers quite a bit though.

No, just no. Capital extraction, be it dividend payout or stock buybacks, benefit existing stockholders, by definition. Stock buybacks, however, as opposed to dividend payout, in a free-ish market increase stock price, which prevents those with less free capital from being stockholders in the first place, which, under capitalist system, are the workers.

Stock buybacks benefit those with previously free capital while at the same time hurting those without free capital currently. In a capitalist system this does hurt workers quite a bit.

Re: Goodbye, Twilio

#295

Post by louwrentius »

eastbound wrote: post #253
louwrentius wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some have more money than they can spend in a lifetime while others are homeless. This is the society we live in, created by capitalism that demands unsustainable growth.

The state takes 63% of our income here in France, and there are still homeless people. I’d say the capitalists do a better job.

You know that France is a capitalist society right?

Re: Goodbye, Twilio

#296

Post by brigandish »

rajanaccros wrote: post #251
prottog wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Capitalism is literally destroying everything You can't give credit all the credit to capitalism. Communism destroyed what was the fourth-largest lake in the world, which was so big that it was called a "sea"[0]. > Some of the smartest people on the internet aggregate on HN and some have still not figured this out. Either because 1) They haven't taken the time to look into the n-order knock on effects that are prod…

> You can't give credit all the credit to capitalism. Communism destroyed what was the fourth-largest lake in the world, which was so big that it was called a "sea"[0]. The age-old adage that if it is not capitalism, it must be communism. > The age-old adage that anyone opposed to your viewpoint is either stupid or evil. Which one are you? Sure my take was reductionist, but you are using my critique to distract is di…

> Which one are you?

I don't think HN is for you.

Re: Goodbye, Twilio

#297

Post by louwrentius »

pikelet wrote: post #268
andsoitis wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Some have more money than they can spend in a lifetime while others are homeless. > This is the society we live in, created by capitalism that demands unsustainable growth. Who are you blaming? If you're so virtuous, why don't you give away half of your money to a homeless person?

Because to make a significant difference to that person's life you'd have to give them an astounding amount of money (and probably other forms of support), and personally speaking I'm still desperately saving just for a chance at having a place of my own myself. Nobody claimed to be 'virtuous', but caring is a good first step. I donate some of my time and a small amount per month to a local multicultural group. Small…

I share your frustrations and thanks for your support.

Re: Goodbye, Twilio

#298

Post by friendzis »

Plasmoid wrote: post #212
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> does not materially benefit labor in the long run. If you ignore the wages (direct and indirect) paid, then sure. Otherwise, I'm not sure how you can argue that in good faith when the largest expense almost any corporation has is labour.

>> In the US at least, the fact of employment isn’t some gift to the laborer, which a lot of employers claim. > If you ignore the wages (direct and indirect) paid, then sure. Otherwise, I'm not sure how you can argue that in good faith when the largest expense almost any corporation has is labour.

Unless you consider employment itself being a benefit to the laborer, your statement is only reflective of expense grouping in financial statements.

Re: Goodbye, Twilio

#299

Post by dicriseg »

rewmie wrote: post #189
paxys wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And conversely there are plenty of startups (the majority even) that had excellent engineering but failed due to a myriad of other reasons. "Engineering = success" is a very naive view of the industry and the world.

> And conversely there are plenty of startups (the majority even) that had excellent engineering but failed due to a myriad of other reasons. "Engineering = success" is a very naive view of the industry and the world. You're putting up lame strawmen. No one claimed "Engineering = success". The claim is that it is absolutely impossible to have a tech startup without engineers, and no idea, no matter how cunning it mig…

What good is a product to a startup if no one's using it? Sales turns the product into money.

Re: Goodbye, Twilio

#300

Post by gbanfalvi »

eastbound wrote: post #253
louwrentius wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some have more money than they can spend in a lifetime while others are homeless. This is the society we live in, created by capitalism that demands unsustainable growth.

The state takes 63% of our income here in France, and there are still homeless people. I’d say the capitalists do a better job.

How are capitalists addressing homelessness? Have you read about homelessness in SF and the bay area?
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