3 ms·

Thank you for the post. Twitter is also the youngest company on your list. The percent spent on R&D goes done when the company get older.

AlbertCory 4y ago
.. and yet, the percent is going up, not down. secondly, you are incorrect about it being "young." It was founded March 21, 2006, making it 16 years old. For a web company, that's an eternity.
- avrionov 4y ago
  Younger than the other companies on your list. Microsoft is 47 years old.
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    .. and Facebook is only a couple years older. And their numbers are not monotonically increasing. Can you find some companies you think are comparable?
    - avrionov 4y ago
      Palantir 19 years old - 2021 R&D expenses were 25%, 2020 - 50% https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/PLTR/income-statement https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/PLTR/income-statement RingCentral - 23 years old - R&D Expenses increasing for the last 3 or 4 years https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/RNG/income-statement https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/RNG/income-statement
      - AlbertCory 4y ago
        I can't look at seekingalpha without being logged in, which I refuse to do for publicly available information. Anyway: Palantir is developing lots of new products, being in the security area, I imagine, while I don't know what RingCentral is doing. In any case, getting aggregate info or industry info, seems inordinately difficult without having a paywall in the way. That's why I went straight to SEC filings, which are public. And that brings me to: * So you found a couple other big spenders and you want to single out those as your comparables. I'll be more impressed when you define a class of tech companies that you think are comparable. We can argue about whether they are, but in any case: where does TWTR rank in that class? And then the subjective question: what have they delivered to shareholders for all that spending?

3 ms·

Thank you for the post. Twitter is also the youngest company on your list. The percent spent on R&D goes done when the company get older.

by avrionov 4y ago

AlbertCory 4y ago
.. and yet, the percent is going up, not down. secondly, you are incorrect about it being "young." It was founded March 21, 2006, making it 16 years old. For a web company, that's an eternity.
- avrionov 4y ago
  Younger than the other companies on your list. Microsoft is 47 years old.
  - AlbertCory 4y ago
    .. and Facebook is only a couple years older. And their numbers are not monotonically increasing. Can you find some companies you think are comparable?
    - avrionov 4y ago
      Palantir 19 years old - 2021 R&D expenses were 25%, 2020 - 50% https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/PLTR/income-statement https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/PLTR/income-statement RingCentral - 23 years old - R&D Expenses increasing for the last 3 or 4 years https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/RNG/income-statement https://seekingalpha.com/symbol/RNG/income-statement
      - AlbertCory 4y ago
        I can't look at seekingalpha without being logged in, which I refuse to do for publicly available information. Anyway: Palantir is developing lots of new products, being in the security area, I imagine, while I don't know what RingCentral is doing. In any case, getting aggregate info or industry info, seems inordinately difficult without having a paywall in the way. That's why I went straight to SEC filings, which are public. And that brings me to: * So you found a couple other big spenders and you want to single out those as your comparables. I'll be more impressed when you define a class of tech companies that you think are comparable. We can argue about whether they are, but in any case: where does TWTR rank in that class? And then the subjective question: what have they delivered to shareholders for all that spending?