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Slack Is Going Public at a $16B Valuation

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

#521

Post by pierlu »

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…

Basically M$ is pushing hard to switch off Skype For Business (SFB) in favor of Teams, especially when still on-premise. The new features are being developed only for Microsoft Teams and the user base is a click away from a decent Slackish app. Another killer feature of Teams (inherited from Lync and SFB) is the trunking possibility with a legacy SIP PBX (so called Microsoft Team Direct Routing, or some form of similar creative name from Redmond market intelligence). So, I think that the future of Slack is probably the same as the future of Spotify, both like the article says incidentally direct-listed at the NYSE (and not via a formal IPO). Both will have a trusted user base, a better interface, but motivated tech giants competing into the same market.

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

#522

Post by avip »

antirez wrote: post #488

Happy for the people that built it, with the idea of improving what the chat was. Sad for the internet, because we were better in the 1980s with an open standard like IRC, and gradually the internet community lost the ability to adapt their old open protocols for the future.

Is it not an inevitable result of federation and decentralization as governance? A camel is a horse designed by a committee, as the saying has it.

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

#523

Post by ourcat »

ngaut wrote: post #233

Mattermost raises $50 million to advance its open source Slack alternative https://venturebeat.com/2019/06/19/mattermost-raises-50-mill...

Mattermost is a fantastic open source alternative to Slack, nicely integrated with Gitlab.

We used Slack on a few projects, but the thought of using a third-party to host corporate development discussion was an absolute no-no in the long run.

It's staggering how fast people are to pay for something when there's a cheaper (or free) alternative out there, these days.

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

#524

Post by mcv »

pmontra wrote: post #517
raverbashing wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I read those "slack sucks", "jira sucks" rants I can't help but think "kids these days" are spoiled Hate slack? Try mIRC. Oh wait what's a "netsplit"? What do you mean I can't paste pictures or code snippets without going to a 3rd party service? Hate Jira? Try Bugzilla/Trac or a multitude of other bug trackers. "Oh the design sucks" really? Have you tried writing a Win32 app and make it look nice? Ok, try it…

You could have a point with Slack but Jira is really terrible. I used it for a customer years ago and I'm so happy any other customer is using something simpler. Jira could be OK if operated by a specialized team paid to do project management and to shield developers from the complications of the tool. It's not only the design, it's the sheer amount of functionality. We don't need all of that. I'd go with Github simp…

Every single one of my clients uses Jira, and nobody I've ever met had a problem with it. It works, it's flexible, it's pretty easy to use. It's the industry standard, and for good reason, as far as I can tell.

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

#525

Post by coldtea »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #452
coldtea wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> so reasonable people can keep communicating over the lower-fidelity medium until problem is resolved. And has empirical evidence, of people communicating in text mediums, from USENET to modern social forums, proven the above?

Yes? I mean, I don't have issues communicating over text on HN, or the subreddits I frequent, or the Slacks, IRC channels and the mailing lists I'm on, ... What the empirical evidence shows me is that there's a (possibly very large) chunk of population which I would call unreasonable on a good day, that I only get to observe on the Internet, but can't ever find in meatspace. I know what's going on over at YouTube com…

>What the empirical evidence shows me is that there's a (possibly very large) chunk of population which I would call unreasonable on a good day, that I only get to observe on the Internet, but can't ever find in meatspace.

And it doesn't occur to you that it's the nature of the communication (online vs face to face) that might be a factor in this?

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

#526

Post by buboard »

avip wrote: post #522
antirez wrote: post #488

Happy for the people that built it, with the idea of improving what the chat was. Sad for the internet, because we were better in the 1980s with an open standard like IRC, and gradually the internet community lost the ability to adapt their old open protocols for the future.

Is it not an inevitable result of federation and decentralization as governance? A camel is a horse designed by a committee , as the saying has it.

I dont think federation has anything to do with it. There were no incentives to bring it to consumers though (in contrast e.g. to email), and by itself it is not easy to use for vast majority of end users.

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

#527

Post by phtrivier »

sagichmal wrote: post #495
raverbashing wrote: post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whenever I read those "slack sucks", "jira sucks" rants I can't help but think "kids these days" are spoiled Hate slack? Try mIRC. Oh wait what's a "netsplit"? What do you mean I can't paste pictures or code snippets without going to a 3rd party service? Hate Jira? Try Bugzilla/Trac or a multitude of other bug trackers. "Oh the design sucks" really? Have you tried writing a Win32 app and make it look nice? Ok, try it…

I would literally and unironically prefer to run a company on mIRC/corporate IRC servers and Bugzilla than Slack and Jira.

Does anyone actually have data on which company is run with what.

Herding exists, but at some point I suspect the fact that more working business use the one rather than the other would have some meaning.

That being said, the good thing about mIRC / Bugzilla is that no-one prevents you from using them for your business, so go for it !

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

#528

Post by sureaboutthis »

fasteo wrote: post #493

>>> More than 88,000 Paid Customers, including more than 65 companies in the Fortune 100; and >>> We had 575 Paid Customers >$100,000 of ARR as of January 31, 2019, which accounted for approximately 40% of our revenue in fiscal year 2019. If my math is right, 40% of their revenue is concentrated in I also saw that this is a direct listing and not an IPO. Again, I can only see this as a risk, basically because no unde…

I predict that, one year from now, few people will be talking about Slack and, two years from now, Slack will be teetering on insolvency.

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

#529

Post by Sahhaese »

antirez wrote: post #488

Happy for the people that built it, with the idea of improving what the chat was. Sad for the internet, because we were better in the 1980s with an open standard like IRC, and gradually the internet community lost the ability to adapt their old open protocols for the future.

The death of the protocol.

People no longer release protocols, they release products. The open net, the open web has truly died.

I wonder sometimes what we're missing because the conditions that let the web grow out of the internet have disappeared. What next leap are we missing?

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

#530

Post by squaresmile »

fasteo wrote: post #493

>>> More than 88,000 Paid Customers, including more than 65 companies in the Fortune 100; and >>> We had 575 Paid Customers >$100,000 of ARR as of January 31, 2019, which accounted for approximately 40% of our revenue in fiscal year 2019. If my math is right, 40% of their revenue is concentrated in I also saw that this is a direct listing and not an IPO. Again, I can only see this as a risk, basically because no unde…

> Again, I can only see this as a risk, basically because no underwriter will push the stock to investors.

They don't need the cash but want to make it easier for stockholders to sell. Now also seems to be the time for tech IPO.

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