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That's a very good question. Amazon has gone through similar periods where the thesis to not invest has almost always been "they don't make any money" (somethin

That's a very good question. Amazon has gone through similar periods where the thesis to not invest has almost always been "they don't make any money" (something that would have cost you roughly a 25x gain since 2008). The hate seems to happen when a) there's a disjunction between market cap and a traditional reading of the balance sheet, b) that difference is due to some poorly understood measure of value that isn't directly captured in traditional financial metrics, c) people either don't see the strategy or are comparing apples to oranges but thinking they're comparing apples to apples. Mostly it seems to be comparing Twitter's numbers with Facebook's, and assuming there is 100% overlap between the two companies in terms of niche. This could be an error of putting Twitter in the wrong category. Maybe they should be compared to media companies, not social networks? Maybe by those measures they are doing just fine?

partiallypro 10y ago
> "Amazon has gone through similar periods where the thesis to not invest has almost always been "they don't make any money"" Amazon didn't make money because they had tremendous capital expenditures but they had amazing cashflow and revenues. Twitter has none of these. There is no comparison at all. > "Mostly it seems to be comparing Twitter's numbers with Facebook's, and assuming there is 100% overlap between the two companies in terms of niche." Totally false, the criticism is that Twitter has turned away from what made them unique and tried to do things like Facebook. All the while Facebook stole their good ideas while Twitter sat on them doing nothing.
- firebones 10y ago
  What "good ideas" has Facebook stolen? It seems to me that the 2016 election is playing out round the clock on Twitter. Twitter may have done nothing while Facebook rustled their jimmies, but that doesn't mean Twitter can't stop doing stupid stuff and start executing. Who considers Facebook a media company? No one.

partiallypro 10y ago

> "Amazon has gone through similar periods where the thesis to not invest has almost always been "they don't make any money"" Amazon didn't make money because they had tremendous capital expenditures but they had amazing cashflow and revenues. Twitter has none of these. There is no comparison at all. > "Mostly it seems to be comparing Twitter's numbers with Facebook's, and assuming there is 100% overlap between the two companies in terms of niche." Totally false, the criticism is that Twitter has turned away from what made them unique and tried to do things like Facebook. All the while Facebook stole their good ideas while Twitter sat on them doing nothing.

firebones 10y ago
What "good ideas" has Facebook stolen? It seems to me that the 2016 election is playing out round the clock on Twitter. Twitter may have done nothing while Facebook rustled their jimmies, but that doesn't mean Twitter can't stop doing stupid stuff and start executing. Who considers Facebook a media company? No one.