4 ms·

The numbers that really matter, though, are given later in the opening paragraph: > Twitter, which lost $221m in 2021, is now on track to lose $4bn a year, by

The numbers that really matter, though, are given later in the opening paragraph: > Twitter, which lost $221m in 2021, is now on track to lose $4bn a year, by one estimate. The challenge is turning those new engagement statistics into dollars.

defrost 4y ago
Those "new engagements" are gone already .. they were the watering hole chatter of the World Cup, and they happened on Twitter as Twitter hasn't yet cratered. The question of interest here is what will be the global water cooler come the next World Cup?
- pocketarc 4y ago
  Twitter. I'd bet on that. I imagine that someone else will be running the show, and it will possibly still be owned by Elon Musk, but it 100% will still be Twitter. There is no real replacement. It's not gonna be some alternative that calls retweets "retruths", nor will it be a decentralised alternative, no matter how much we want it to be, the UX is simply not there (yet?). Even if an alternative pops up, it will take more than 4 years for it to dethrone Twitter. Put your faith in inertia. It is a powerful (lack of) force.
  - orwin 4y ago
    Idk. In the last week, half the infosec blogs i followed stopped posting on twitter (or writing about stuff they saw on twitter) so at least for me, i only went on twitter thrice last week? compared to probably an average of ten times a week in the last two month. I'm not even actively boycotting (i don't believe in boycott, it's just a nice story to make you believe you have power)
willcipriano 4y ago
They have a run rate > 4 billion a year even after all those layoffs? What will it look like after they are done paying out severance packages?
- bkor 4y ago
  > They have a run rate > 4 billion a year even after all those layoffs? I highly recommend reading the following article: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/30/1139964806/how-elon-bought-twitter-with-other-peoples-money https://www.npr.org/2022/11/30/1139964806/how-elon-bought-tw... Elon Musk bought Twitter with "loans". The interest of those loans are now a responsibility for Twitter. Meaning did NOT have a huge run rate. The leveraged buyout caused this. There have been an insane amount of focus that the huge predicted losses are a result of lazy overpaid developers. This while ignoring that Elon Mush did a leveraged buyout. The number of employees wasn't the issue, making Twitter responsible for billions in loans while the interest rate of those loans went up is the problem. Elon Musk keeps complaining about the federal reserve and the interest rate. He's complaining for a reason. He gambled and couldn't back out.
  - willcipriano 4y ago
    > spent $13 billion of borrowed money on the acquisition. Assuming Twitter is breaks even otherwise (give or take a few hundred million) for it to hit 4 billion wouldn't that be like 30% interest? Not impossible, but that seems really high to me. This has his unsecured loans at something like 11%[0] that seems more reasonable and would have the loans costing around one and half billion. [0]https://www.reuters.com/business/musks-bankers-mull-new-tesla-margin-loans-slash-twitter-debt-bloomberg-news-2022-12-08/ https://www.reuters.com/business/musks-bankers-mull-new-tesl...
    - orwin 4y ago
      It's because the revenue fell heavily (first the uncertainty concerning the buyout, then Elon himself and his attacks on brands didn't help). I've read the interests would cost him a billion, and twitter lost revenue is like twice that. 4 billions seems a bit excessive, but 2.5-3 wouldn't surprise me.
      - willcipriano 4y ago
        To have 4 billion in losses don't you have to have 4 billion in costs? If loans are a billion that means Twitters overhead even after laying off 75% of the staff and cutting free lunches etc is over 3 billion. What makes me question that is you can build a football stadium every six months for that money or an aircraft carrier every 18 months, and those aren't examples of particularly efficiently ran projects. That seems like a lot for what they do. I could see perhaps a 2.5-3 billion loss with severence payments, lawsuits and the media uproar next year but that will pass eventually. The real question is what things look like once that dies down. I don't think he will make his money back but historically when captains of industry for lack of a better term buy media outlets that rarely happens anyway (Did Bezos make money on the Washington Post, they are taking about layoffs right now). 4 billion just has the little accountant in my head going "wait a minute".

defrost 4y ago

Those "new engagements" are gone already .. they were the watering hole chatter of the World Cup, and they happened on Twitter as Twitter hasn't yet cratered. The question of interest here is what will be the global water cooler come the next World Cup?

pocketarc 4y ago
Twitter. I'd bet on that. I imagine that someone else will be running the show, and it will possibly still be owned by Elon Musk, but it 100% will still be Twitter. There is no real replacement. It's not gonna be some alternative that calls retweets "retruths", nor will it be a decentralised alternative, no matter how much we want it to be, the UX is simply not there (yet?). Even if an alternative pops up, it will take more than 4 years for it to dethrone Twitter. Put your faith in inertia. It is a powerful (lack of) force.
- orwin 4y ago
  Idk. In the last week, half the infosec blogs i followed stopped posting on twitter (or writing about stuff they saw on twitter) so at least for me, i only went on twitter thrice last week? compared to probably an average of ten times a week in the last two month. I'm not even actively boycotting (i don't believe in boycott, it's just a nice story to make you believe you have power)

willcipriano 4y ago

They have a run rate > 4 billion a year even after all those layoffs? What will it look like after they are done paying out severance packages?

bkor 4y ago
> They have a run rate > 4 billion a year even after all those layoffs? I highly recommend reading the following article: https://www.npr.org/2022/11/30/1139964806/how-elon-bought-twitter-with-other-peoples-money https://www.npr.org/2022/11/30/1139964806/how-elon-bought-tw... Elon Musk bought Twitter with "loans". The interest of those loans are now a responsibility for Twitter. Meaning did NOT have a huge run rate. The leveraged buyout caused this. There have been an insane amount of focus that the huge predicted losses are a result of lazy overpaid developers. This while ignoring that Elon Mush did a leveraged buyout. The number of employees wasn't the issue, making Twitter responsible for billions in loans while the interest rate of those loans went up is the problem. Elon Musk keeps complaining about the federal reserve and the interest rate. He's complaining for a reason. He gambled and couldn't back out.
- willcipriano 4y ago
  > spent $13 billion of borrowed money on the acquisition. Assuming Twitter is breaks even otherwise (give or take a few hundred million) for it to hit 4 billion wouldn't that be like 30% interest? Not impossible, but that seems really high to me. This has his unsecured loans at something like 11%[0] that seems more reasonable and would have the loans costing around one and half billion. [0]https://www.reuters.com/business/musks-bankers-mull-new-tesla-margin-loans-slash-twitter-debt-bloomberg-news-2022-12-08/ https://www.reuters.com/business/musks-bankers-mull-new-tesl...
  - orwin 4y ago
    It's because the revenue fell heavily (first the uncertainty concerning the buyout, then Elon himself and his attacks on brands didn't help). I've read the interests would cost him a billion, and twitter lost revenue is like twice that. 4 billions seems a bit excessive, but 2.5-3 wouldn't surprise me.
    - willcipriano 4y ago
      To have 4 billion in losses don't you have to have 4 billion in costs? If loans are a billion that means Twitters overhead even after laying off 75% of the staff and cutting free lunches etc is over 3 billion. What makes me question that is you can build a football stadium every six months for that money or an aircraft carrier every 18 months, and those aren't examples of particularly efficiently ran projects. That seems like a lot for what they do. I could see perhaps a 2.5-3 billion loss with severence payments, lawsuits and the media uproar next year but that will pass eventually. The real question is what things look like once that dies down. I don't think he will make his money back but historically when captains of industry for lack of a better term buy media outlets that rarely happens anyway (Did Bezos make money on the Washington Post, they are taking about layoffs right now). 4 billion just has the little accountant in my head going "wait a minute".