4 ms·

I'm not sure Twitter is burning money as furiously as you think. Last year they claimed they were cash flow positive[1] just on firehose deal worth $25M a year.

I'm not sure Twitter is burning money as furiously as you think. Last year they claimed they were cash flow positive[1] just on firehose deal worth $25M a year. I'm not saying they are worth 3.5B but it looks like Twitter is setting themselves up for a really long runway before they would crash [1] http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2009/tc20091220_549879.htm http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2009/tc200...

mmaunder 16y ago
I'm not sure either, but here's some data: Employees: 350 (Source: Forbes, Dec 15th, 2010) Avg salary, lets assume 80K. (probably too low) TCO per employee $110K $110K * 350 = $38.5 Million per year on employees. They've been paying NTT for managed hosting thus far - so much that NTT has cited it as a reason they're expanding their hosting network. They're about to open their own data center in Sacramento - probably because they're realizing how expensive NTT is. My guess is they could be spending as much as $30 million per year on hosting and infrastructure. Add another $10 for office, admin and legal and you've got a burn rate of just under $80 million per year or $400 million over 5 years.
- olalonde 16y ago
  The WTF here is that they have 350 employees.
  - iamjustlooking 16y ago
    I speculate that it must feel ok to keep hiring when you're using other peoples money to hire them.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - zx76 16y ago
    Reminiscent of how Digg hired far too many people. When you're taking big money and the press puts you in the same sentence as Facebook there must be pressure to be like the other big companies. I think there's also an element of betting going on - this is a venture backed startup after all - if Twitter really starts to unlock massive growth over the next year or so then having so many employees will seem a prescient move.
deleted 16y ago
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Maascamp 16y ago
According to their COO as of the end of August this year they're still not profitable http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2010/08/24/tt_twitter_not_profitable.cnnmoney/ http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2010/08/24/tt_twitter_...

mmaunder 16y ago

I'm not sure either, but here's some data: Employees: 350 (Source: Forbes, Dec 15th, 2010) Avg salary, lets assume 80K. (probably too low) TCO per employee $110K $110K * 350 = $38.5 Million per year on employees. They've been paying NTT for managed hosting thus far - so much that NTT has cited it as a reason they're expanding their hosting network. They're about to open their own data center in Sacramento - probably because they're realizing how expensive NTT is. My guess is they could be spending as much as $30 million per year on hosting and infrastructure. Add another $10 for office, admin and legal and you've got a burn rate of just under $80 million per year or $400 million over 5 years.

olalonde 16y ago
The WTF here is that they have 350 employees.
- iamjustlooking 16y ago
  I speculate that it must feel ok to keep hiring when you're using other peoples money to hire them.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- zx76 16y ago
  Reminiscent of how Digg hired far too many people. When you're taking big money and the press puts you in the same sentence as Facebook there must be pressure to be like the other big companies. I think there's also an element of betting going on - this is a venture backed startup after all - if Twitter really starts to unlock massive growth over the next year or so then having so many employees will seem a prescient move.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

Maascamp 16y ago

According to their COO as of the end of August this year they're still not profitable http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2010/08/24/tt_twitter_not_profitable.cnnmoney/ http://money.cnn.com/video/technology/2010/08/24/tt_twitter_...