Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation • Hacker News Board

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#321

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 5:32 AM UTC

wayoutthere wrote: post #12

I agree they’re a great product org, but not sure I agree they’re a $16B company — messaging apps tend to be cyclical, so I’m not sold on their long term viability. It’s just too easy for new IM platforms to take root inside a company once the old one gets too noisy. Given the growing grassroots backlash against the entire Slack Way, I’m not convinced they have a long enough runway to pivot to a stickier product befo…

While messaging apps have tended to be cyclical, I'd argue Slack has become much more than a simple messaging app at many large companies with their integrations and bots, and they are intrinsic to many teams' workflows (e.g. "ChatOps" is a real thing).

I see Slack as more akin to something like Excel, where people who really depend on it (in a way much more than person-to-person chat) go beserk if it's taken away.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#322

Post by solidasparagus » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 5:33 AM UTC

loeg wrote: post #302

It's just crazy to many of us that a reinvented IRC is suddenly "not dead" and in vogue again. Not unbelievable, just kind of surprising how quickly text chat on a channel format was cloned, rebranded, and valued for billions.

Slack didn't clone text chat. They took the best parts of text chat, Facebook (reactions), Reddit (threads, edits) and terminals (simple UI for applications) and merged them into a single tool. I'm currently using HipChat and the difference is night and day. Slack makes large, busy chat rooms coherent in a way that just isn't possible with other text chats. And because of that, it opens new completely new possibilities (channels to support customers, channels to use as long-term references, etc.)

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#323

Post by cududa » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 5:33 AM UTC

marcrosoft wrote: post #207

scarface74 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t want the same experience cross platforms. I don’t want the “Mac experience” when I am using Windows (see iTunes) or the “Windows experience” when I am using a Mac (old versions of Office).

No, what you want is the same experience. Which is what the web gives you. What you are describing is native apps trying to replicate the same experience and failing because they are native. Edit: Native apps require more maintenance which adds to the delta in experience. If a single app is created (web) there is no delta.

Are you seriously trying to tell someone what they want, when they clearly and rationally laid out specifically what they actually want?

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#324

Post by danielscrubs » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 5:33 AM UTC

mehrdadn wrote: post #25

Roritharr wrote: post #5

Well deserved. Their product-vision was clear, their execution focused on what mattered... and they didn't need to bend or break laws to succeed. It's easily my favorite unicorn of the past decade.

I don't know about "well deserved". They did it by holding people's data hostage. It's one thing to make your messages unsearchable or otherwise available in the UI until your pay, but holding your data completely hostage until you pay up isn't exactly a noble way to go about things. Even Facebook isn't this obnoxious about getting you a copy of your message history.

Huh. Wasn’t Facebook forced to add a export data button because of a law?

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#325

Post by baby » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 5:35 AM UTC

Roritharr wrote: post #5

Well deserved. Their product-vision was clear, their execution focused on what mattered... and they didn't need to bend or break laws to succeed. It's easily my favorite unicorn of the past decade.

Agree. About the breaking the law thing though: it's a B2B. Most "breaking the law" companies seem to be B2C.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#326

Post by dmitriid » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 5:37 AM UTC

aeternus wrote: post #274

rtkwe wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't the Slack bot integration provide a better moat. If they can get orgs using a lot of bots for CI reporting, etc switching gets more difficult at least. Not sure how many teams get that tightly integrated with bots though.

Notifications are easy, do many companies really use more advanced bots?

Notifications are easy if the integrations exist.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#327

Post by CoryG89 » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 5:40 AM UTC

huis wrote: post #313

To me the succes of Slack also shows how invaluable it is. Companies jumped to it very easily. Everybody just started using it. And the moment something better comes along Slack will be forgotten. I think this is different from Facebook. Company employees come and go so they don't value what they put on Slack very much. And for companies the history on slack is also not very important. Well that's how I see how Slack…

I don't necessarily think Slack is worth $16B any time soon, but I actually do feel like my searchable Slack history stretching back ~5 years is one of the most valuable resources I have at my fingertips on a dailt basis. The search quickly pulls up stuff from years ago even stuff from before we changed the subdomain for the org.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#328

Post by mehrdadn » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 5:42 AM UTC

danielscrubs wrote: post #324

mehrdadn wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about "well deserved". They did it by holding people's data hostage. It's one thing to make your messages unsearchable or otherwise available in the UI until your pay, but holding your data completely hostage until you pay up isn't exactly a noble way to go about things. Even Facebook isn't this obnoxious about getting you a copy of your message history.

Huh. Wasn’t Facebook forced to add a export data button because of a law?

I don't know exactly what made them add that feature or when that happened (it was before 2011, I think), but AFAIK they never outright blocked you from even viewing older messages. And even then it was possible to scrape it I think, if my Googling right now is any indication.

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#329

Post by kbyatnal » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 5:43 AM UTC

garrett_oh wrote: post #300

mamurphy wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've only used discord -- do threads exist on slack? Or is GP right and lack of threads is a major downfall of chat apps, including slack?

Slack does have threads. Everyone at my company is quick to remind those who don’t use them.

Slack threads feel very much like an afterthought though. They never get used at my company (and for good reason).

Re: Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

#330

Post by gumby » Thu, Jun 20, 2019, 5:43 AM UTC

Maybe now they have some money they can finally afford make video chat work on mobile.

We ended up switching to zoom for video chat because it worked on phones as well as computers and handled slow connections (USAustralia) much better than Slack's electron chat.