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Was Twitter really failing? It finally became (extremely) profitable in 2018 and 2019 before tanking in 2020 (covid?) but it made a decent recovery in 2021: htt

by smcl 4y ago

Was Twitter really failing? It finally became (extremely) profitable in 2018 and 2019 before tanking in 2020 (covid?) but it made a decent recovery in 2021: https://www.statista.com/statistics/274563/annual-net-income-of-twitter https://www.statista.com/statistics/274563/annual-net-income...

jurassic 4y ago
The company wasn't financially failing until Elon showed up, scared off most of the major advertisers, and stuck the company with $13B in high-interest loans he used to buy it.
- PM_me_your_math 4y ago
  Losing 4 billion dollars over 10 years isn't healthy.
  - smcl 4y ago
    Wouldn't this logic make basically all SV giants "failing" until they hit that hockey stick turning point? Hell even Tesla didn't turn a profit until 2020, and it is pretty universally considered to be a success (even if there are some raised eyebrows over their the source of the profits being tax credits, and sky-high stock price)
    - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
      Twitter actually turned a profit only twice in 10 years (FY18/19) but then went right back to hemorrhaging money. There was ostensibly no reason for it beyond mismanagement and staggering waste.
      - smcl 4y ago
        No objections over it being described as mismanaged and wasteful, but "failing" implies it was on the brink of collapse. It certainly wasn't my idea of a model company, but it wasn't exactly Lehman Brothers during the financial crisis.
cragfar 4y ago
They have all kinds of weird tax stuff going on from 2018-2020. Just ignoring taxes, they had a loss in 2020 and 2021 (2021 was mainly due to a class action lawsuit they lost for $800 million). 2022 YTD income was just barely positive in Q2 with them showing a 970 million gain from selling a company. So not really failing, but had a very uncertain future. https://investor.twitterinc.com/financial-information/quarterly-results/default.aspx https://investor.twitterinc.com/financial-information/quarte...
bartimus 4y ago
Perhaps not the most popular take: It actually got saved by Trump.

by smcl 4y ago

jurassic 4y ago

The company wasn't financially failing until Elon showed up, scared off most of the major advertisers, and stuck the company with $13B in high-interest loans he used to buy it.

PM_me_your_math 4y ago
Losing 4 billion dollars over 10 years isn't healthy.
- smcl 4y ago
  Wouldn't this logic make basically all SV giants "failing" until they hit that hockey stick turning point? Hell even Tesla didn't turn a profit until 2020, and it is pretty universally considered to be a success (even if there are some raised eyebrows over their the source of the profits being tax credits, and sky-high stock price)
  - PM_me_your_math 4y ago
    Twitter actually turned a profit only twice in 10 years (FY18/19) but then went right back to hemorrhaging money. There was ostensibly no reason for it beyond mismanagement and staggering waste.
    - smcl 4y ago
      No objections over it being described as mismanaged and wasteful, but "failing" implies it was on the brink of collapse. It certainly wasn't my idea of a model company, but it wasn't exactly Lehman Brothers during the financial crisis.

cragfar 4y ago

They have all kinds of weird tax stuff going on from 2018-2020. Just ignoring taxes, they had a loss in 2020 and 2021 (2021 was mainly due to a class action lawsuit they lost for $800 million). 2022 YTD income was just barely positive in Q2 with them showing a 970 million gain from selling a company. So not really failing, but had a very uncertain future. https://investor.twitterinc.com/financial-information/quarterly-results/default.aspx https://investor.twitterinc.com/financial-information/quarte...

bartimus 4y ago

Perhaps not the most popular take: It actually got saved by Trump.