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Would you have put Google and Facebook in this group when they weren't profitable? You are missing something - many companies have great long term economics eve

Would you have put Google and Facebook in this group when they weren't profitable? You are missing something - many companies have great long term economics even if they are losing money right now. Slack (if still independent) could easily be profitable - they just have to spend less growth (ie, largely they could cut their sales and marketing dramatically, along with other items). Snapchat the same, Pinterest the same. Some of the others I believe you might by and large correct. The general statement that lots of companies are giving away dollar bills for $0.80 isn't right.

mike_hearn 6y ago
This is a common argument but would seem wrong to a lot of people. It's just unintuitive. Most people of our parents generation would find this argument slightly absurd, and our grandparents would find it entirely absurd. It sounds weird because it assumes that every tech business has either insurmountable lock-in or insurmountable first mover advantage, without explicitly stating that. To fill in that assumption requires a lot of cultural knowledge of tech - the vast majority of businesses don't have either. The problem is these assumptions are very likely incorrect for most modern "tech" businesses. It looks like over-generalisation. For example: 1. Slack has relatively little lock-in. The last company I worked for was in the process of migrating to Teams when I left. The justification was cost savings. Slack is trying to build network effects and lock-in with shared inter-firm channels, but most employees don't need to interact with other firms at least in today's business world, so even if Slack becomes the Bloomberg Terminal for the rest of us, it won't be the foundation of a huge business: only the people who need to communicate with other Slack-using firms will have Slack accounts and they charge by account. 2. Snapchat is a social network, and the iron law of social networks seems to be that they're at the top for only a relatively short period. Facebook is by far the longest lasting but even so, they've had to shore up that position by buying Instagram and WhatsApp. Snapchat's value won't last forever, so burning cash to get to the top in the hope of monetising it over the long run seem a bit optimistic. 3. Uber is basically a taxi firm. There is no moat there. Me using Uber doesn't really make it more useful for you, except in the sense that it attracts drivers. But drivers are capable of using multiple apps at once and switching between them. If Uber's prices were to increase really significantly, their market share would probably go into free-fall yet the hallmark of a company with lock-in is that they can charge very high prices for decades without facing competition. 4. Amazon was never able to convert high market share in retail to high profits. Its profits come mostly from AWS: a pure tech supply chain business. It's also worth noting that Google and Facebook became profitable quite quickly relative to the sorts of companies people are criticising these days. It took Google less than 6 years to reach mega-profits. There are now firms that are doing Series G (!) raises, which aren't profitable after 15 years.
- benzor 6y ago
  This is an excellent answer and took the thoughts right out of my mind. To elaborate a bit for GP: No I would not have classified early stage Google or Facebook or Amazon as "perpetually unprofitable tech" because, frankly, they clearly weren't. All 3 of these companies had strong, obvious moats that enabled them to preserve pricing power. All 3 of these companies had a small handful of initial cap raises and have grown entirely via Free Cash Flow ever since. The fact that all 3 of these companies continue to operate with staggering profitability decades later confirms this. (You can of course debate the ethics of having such a moat, antitrust etc., but you cannot deny it's there.)
  - Breza 6y ago
    It's incredible that Amazon was able to build such a moat in the early days. Logically, you'd think that somebody like Sears (which became a huge company in the first place by offering the convenience of shopping from home!) would have made a big early investment in online shopping and become gigantic.
- danielmarkbruce 6y ago
  1. Good unit economics can come from various sources. The idea that Slack has little lock in and hence can't have good economics is misguided. Coke has little lock in, yet amazing economics. Google has little lock in, yet amazing economics. Sources of competitive advantage aren't restricted to lock in. Scale is a source of competitive advantage, for example. 2. Your point is hard to refute and may be correct - it isn't obvious they will do well or poorly over time. 3. This is almost certainly wrong. If Uber had no moat there would be more than Uber and Lyft in the US. It's going to be impossible to enter this market for a new player short of having self driving all worked out. 4. Yep, it wasn't/isn't clear on Amazon's retail biz, I'll agree with that. You have some examples which are correct - there are specific situations where you are right. But the statement cannot be generalized.
  - mike_hearn 6y ago
    For (3) it isn't required to have a moat. Market dumping is sufficient. Nobody is going to compete with a firm that's selling below cost, as Uber/Lyft are doing. But, I've used non-Uber/Lyft taxi apps that were perfectly competent. It's not that hard to build such an app, especially if you 'just' want to sell taxi rides in local jurisdictions instead of any conceivable moving service in every possible geography. If/when they stop burning money, only then we'll find out what kind of moat they have.

mike_hearn 6y ago

This is a common argument but would seem wrong to a lot of people. It's just unintuitive. Most people of our parents generation would find this argument slightly absurd, and our grandparents would find it entirely absurd. It sounds weird because it assumes that every tech business has either insurmountable lock-in or insurmountable first mover advantage, without explicitly stating that. To fill in that assumption requires a lot of cultural knowledge of tech - the vast majority of businesses don't have either. The problem is these assumptions are very likely incorrect for most modern "tech" businesses. It looks like over-generalisation. For example: 1. Slack has relatively little lock-in. The last company I worked for was in the process of migrating to Teams when I left. The justification was cost savings. Slack is trying to build network effects and lock-in with shared inter-firm channels, but most employees don't need to interact with other firms at least in today's business world, so even if Slack becomes the Bloomberg Terminal for the rest of us, it won't be the foundation of a huge business: only the people who need to communicate with other Slack-using firms will have Slack accounts and they charge by account. 2. Snapchat is a social network, and the iron law of social networks seems to be that they're at the top for only a relatively short period. Facebook is by far the longest lasting but even so, they've had to shore up that position by buying Instagram and WhatsApp. Snapchat's value won't last forever, so burning cash to get to the top in the hope of monetising it over the long run seem a bit optimistic. 3. Uber is basically a taxi firm. There is no moat there. Me using Uber doesn't really make it more useful for you, except in the sense that it attracts drivers. But drivers are capable of using multiple apps at once and switching between them. If Uber's prices were to increase really significantly, their market share would probably go into free-fall yet the hallmark of a company with lock-in is that they can charge very high prices for decades without facing competition. 4. Amazon was never able to convert high market share in retail to high profits. Its profits come mostly from AWS: a pure tech supply chain business. It's also worth noting that Google and Facebook became profitable quite quickly relative to the sorts of companies people are criticising these days. It took Google less than 6 years to reach mega-profits. There are now firms that are doing Series G (!) raises, which aren't profitable after 15 years.

benzor 6y ago
This is an excellent answer and took the thoughts right out of my mind. To elaborate a bit for GP: No I would not have classified early stage Google or Facebook or Amazon as "perpetually unprofitable tech" because, frankly, they clearly weren't. All 3 of these companies had strong, obvious moats that enabled them to preserve pricing power. All 3 of these companies had a small handful of initial cap raises and have grown entirely via Free Cash Flow ever since. The fact that all 3 of these companies continue to operate with staggering profitability decades later confirms this. (You can of course debate the ethics of having such a moat, antitrust etc., but you cannot deny it's there.)
- Breza 6y ago
  It's incredible that Amazon was able to build such a moat in the early days. Logically, you'd think that somebody like Sears (which became a huge company in the first place by offering the convenience of shopping from home!) would have made a big early investment in online shopping and become gigantic.
danielmarkbruce 6y ago
1. Good unit economics can come from various sources. The idea that Slack has little lock in and hence can't have good economics is misguided. Coke has little lock in, yet amazing economics. Google has little lock in, yet amazing economics. Sources of competitive advantage aren't restricted to lock in. Scale is a source of competitive advantage, for example. 2. Your point is hard to refute and may be correct - it isn't obvious they will do well or poorly over time. 3. This is almost certainly wrong. If Uber had no moat there would be more than Uber and Lyft in the US. It's going to be impossible to enter this market for a new player short of having self driving all worked out. 4. Yep, it wasn't/isn't clear on Amazon's retail biz, I'll agree with that. You have some examples which are correct - there are specific situations where you are right. But the statement cannot be generalized.
- mike_hearn 6y ago
  For (3) it isn't required to have a moat. Market dumping is sufficient. Nobody is going to compete with a firm that's selling below cost, as Uber/Lyft are doing. But, I've used non-Uber/Lyft taxi apps that were perfectly competent. It's not that hard to build such an app, especially if you 'just' want to sell taxi rides in local jurisdictions instead of any conceivable moving service in every possible geography. If/when they stop burning money, only then we'll find out what kind of moat they have.