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I don’t understand why people keep saying this. Twitter was a public company. You can see from their financial statements that they recorded positive operating

by ketzo 4y ago

I don’t understand why people keep saying this. Twitter was a public company. You can see from their financial statements that they recorded positive operating income for all of 2021. Not very positive! They weren’t a great business! Then they had to pay a huge fine, and lost a bunch of money because of it. But they weren’t operating at a loss. Certainly not “millions a day.” Where do people get that figure? 2020, they had a $1B net loss for the year. 2019, they had a $1B net gain. I dunno, it’s clear they were a weird and not great business. But like, they weren’t JUST lighting cash on fire.

foundajob 4y ago
d23 4y ago
I think they got it from Elon shortly after he took over, turned everything into chaos, and advertisers started bailing. That being said, he also appears to be a pathological liar, so he could just be making it up on top of that. But yes, this notion that Twitter was just hemorrhaging money seems flatly false and easily disprovable. I haven't read the financial statements in a while, but when I last did I indeed saw one of the few tech companies that was actually profitable.
- midoridensha 4y ago
  >That being said, he also appears to be a pathological liar Is there a such thing as a person who reaches that level of wealth who isn't? Perhaps people who were born with it might not be, but it seems to be a prerequisite for people who achieve that level of wealth themselves.
  - d23 4y ago
    Buffett and Munger seem like genuinely good guys from the various talks and writings I’ve seen of theirs.
    - midoridensha 4y ago
      I guess there's always an exception.
unsui 4y ago
It's frustrating to regularly hear people (particularly on HN, but not exclusively) justifying, or even just giving a light nod of approval, to Musk's horrendous "leadership" via firings, simply because twitter isn't profitable in their eyes. It seems like cherry-picking excuses to support Musk's leadership style rather than any justified basis. If the parent comment is correct, they just aren't as profitable as Wall Street would like (therefore they are not "profitable"). Saying that the firings are justified is then just moving the goalposts to support an a-priori conviction. Additionally, it seems ironic that this is coming from proponents of the Silicon-Valley ethos of "screw profitability, we'll figure it out later"... an ethos that created Amazon and so many other tech titans. Yes, profitability matters, but only when your other forms of capital (e.g., social, political) have been depleted. It's tragic that Musk is depleting whatever capital twitter had remaining on its current death march. Financially "profitable" or not, twitter did undeniably have social and political capital. Soon, it will have neither.
- ethanbond 4y ago
  It’s because people are looking at him and saying, “whoa, I can behave like that and not only get away with it, but win by it?!” There’s room for sincere curiosity about what’s going on and what’ll happen, but a lot of what I see online is people just relishing in the sadism of the whole ordeal.
  - abathur 4y ago
    The cruelty does seem to be the point. Not sure how we escape the gravity of it.
    - andirk 4y ago
      Part of the mostly made up version of the American Dream is like "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" which oddly also implies "and then once you have, close the door behind you. Don't want this party getting too crowded". My point is that fetishizing capitalism requires a taste for squeezing others for all their worth. If others aren't, then that means you endured that bootstrap pain for no reason!
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
metamet 4y ago
> Certainly not “millions a day.” Where do people get that figure? I suspect that $4m a day number Musk has been tossing around is rooted in his terrible financial investment. He purchased the company for $44b, which has something like $1.4b in interest every year? Which would be $3.8m a day. So Twitter wasn't losing $4m a day--Musk was.
- HWR_14 4y ago
  No, Musk signed for the loan, but as Twitters CEO. Twitter is on the hook, not him personally.
lijogdfljk 4y ago
Elon said it, and it was what they wanted to hear. Like most information on the internet.
trap_goes_hot 4y ago
I'm curious to know if anyone has accounted for losses from all the prior years? Those still need to be paid back/accounted for. Did they break-even?
ilyt 4y ago
I'd imagine by googling it and getting this: https://www.statista.com/statistics/274563/annual-net-income-of-twitter/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/274563/annual-net-income... https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/ https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/ and see that revenue is growing but it's still in the red, and obvious conclusion to that being "they hired a lot of people that don't bring that much profit"

by ketzo 4y ago

foundajob 4y ago

d23 4y ago

I think they got it from Elon shortly after he took over, turned everything into chaos, and advertisers started bailing. That being said, he also appears to be a pathological liar, so he could just be making it up on top of that. But yes, this notion that Twitter was just hemorrhaging money seems flatly false and easily disprovable. I haven't read the financial statements in a while, but when I last did I indeed saw one of the few tech companies that was actually profitable.

midoridensha 4y ago
>That being said, he also appears to be a pathological liar Is there a such thing as a person who reaches that level of wealth who isn't? Perhaps people who were born with it might not be, but it seems to be a prerequisite for people who achieve that level of wealth themselves.
- d23 4y ago
  Buffett and Munger seem like genuinely good guys from the various talks and writings I’ve seen of theirs.
  - midoridensha 4y ago
    I guess there's always an exception.

unsui 4y ago

It's frustrating to regularly hear people (particularly on HN, but not exclusively) justifying, or even just giving a light nod of approval, to Musk's horrendous "leadership" via firings, simply because twitter isn't profitable in their eyes. It seems like cherry-picking excuses to support Musk's leadership style rather than any justified basis. If the parent comment is correct, they just aren't as profitable as Wall Street would like (therefore they are not "profitable"). Saying that the firings are justified is then just moving the goalposts to support an a-priori conviction. Additionally, it seems ironic that this is coming from proponents of the Silicon-Valley ethos of "screw profitability, we'll figure it out later"... an ethos that created Amazon and so many other tech titans. Yes, profitability matters, but only when your other forms of capital (e.g., social, political) have been depleted. It's tragic that Musk is depleting whatever capital twitter had remaining on its current death march. Financially "profitable" or not, twitter did undeniably have social and political capital. Soon, it will have neither.

ethanbond 4y ago
It’s because people are looking at him and saying, “whoa, I can behave like that and not only get away with it, but win by it?!” There’s room for sincere curiosity about what’s going on and what’ll happen, but a lot of what I see online is people just relishing in the sadism of the whole ordeal.
- abathur 4y ago
  The cruelty does seem to be the point. Not sure how we escape the gravity of it.
  - andirk 4y ago
    Part of the mostly made up version of the American Dream is like "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" which oddly also implies "and then once you have, close the door behind you. Don't want this party getting too crowded". My point is that fetishizing capitalism requires a taste for squeezing others for all their worth. If others aren't, then that means you endured that bootstrap pain for no reason!

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

metamet 4y ago

> Certainly not “millions a day.” Where do people get that figure? I suspect that $4m a day number Musk has been tossing around is rooted in his terrible financial investment. He purchased the company for $44b, which has something like $1.4b in interest every year? Which would be $3.8m a day. So Twitter wasn't losing $4m a day--Musk was.

HWR_14 4y ago
No, Musk signed for the loan, but as Twitters CEO. Twitter is on the hook, not him personally.

lijogdfljk 4y ago

Elon said it, and it was what they wanted to hear. Like most information on the internet.

trap_goes_hot 4y ago

I'm curious to know if anyone has accounted for losses from all the prior years? Those still need to be paid back/accounted for. Did they break-even?

ilyt 4y ago

I'd imagine by googling it and getting this: https://www.statista.com/statistics/274563/annual-net-income-of-twitter/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/274563/annual-net-income... https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/ https://www.businessofapps.com/data/twitter-statistics/ and see that revenue is growing but it's still in the red, and obvious conclusion to that being "they hired a lot of people that don't bring that much profit"