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Thank you Miguel for all of your contributions to Twilio over the past four years, and I hope your next gig is just as rewarding! For all those interested in w

Thank you Miguel for all of your contributions to Twilio over the past four years, and I hope your next gig is just as rewarding! For all those interested in why we acquired Segment, and are focused on the integration of data and communications -- several years ago, we came to the conclusion that the world doesn't need more communications, it needs better communications. More relevant. More effective. As a developer, I know that's really hard to pull all the threads together to make realtime personalization of every communication hard -- and Segment is so good at it. So that's what we're focused on! As an aside, the fraud and scam vectors of email, sms, and voice have grown a lot since we started the company 15 years ago. We are always fighting that cat and mouse game with the bad folks of the world. Are we perfect, no. But are we here to make money off those bad actors? Hell no. That's why we just launched fraud guard [1] for free to all Verify customers, and soon to all SMS customers as well. More to come like this. Happy Father's Day (in the US) HN! [1] https://www.twilio.com/docs/verify/preventing-toll-fraud/sms-fraud-guard https://www.twilio.com/docs/verify/preventing-toll-fraud/sms...

rsync 3y ago
Haha. Yes, fighting the good fight - doing god’s own work.
ocdtrekkie 3y ago
Question: What does Twilio do with the profit it does make off those bad actors once it discovers they are bad actors? Probably my top issue with companies like Google which make a ton of money off of crime is... they keep the money from the crime! That's a perverse incentive to at least do a poor job preventing it. I remember visiting the Twilio offices when it was still tiny during a Google Glass related thing. I still have the T-shirt.
- ITB 3y ago
  You have the CEO of a public company come out to play and address a public post, which is pretty cool! Your attacking style of questioning just makes people like Jeff less likely to engage with the community. You could frame the same question in a more constructive style.
  - bornfreddy 3y ago
    (for the record, I didn't downvote you) Curious, what in GP's question rubbed you the wrong way? To me it seemed like a legitimate question. I'd actually like to know the answer myself because in the end it always comes down to incentives. But maybe I missed some nuance? (not a native english speaker, obviously) Anyway, hoping for the answer to the question, and that it is taken in a positive way.
  - ocdtrekkie 3y ago
    I actually don't have a strong issue with Twilio, and I think it's a good question that concerns me about other larger companies which also have problems with bad actors on their platform. It is potentially something that CEO could use as a huge differentiator if they want to as well. It definitely wasn't meant to be attacking in style, and I also wasn't aware this was the CEO. =) That being said, I'm not a scary individual, I assume I am softballing compared to what a CEO faces day to day.
  - AJayWalker 3y ago
    I didn’t take ocdtrekkie’s question as attacking. How would you have phrased it to be more constructive?
  - itsoktocry 3y ago
    >come out to play Jeff is the CEO of a public company, and hence works for shareholders. It's in Jeff's interest to engage with the community, and we are glad he's here. We certainly don't need to tiptoe around delicate sensibilities though...
- jeffiel 3y ago
  It’s a good question because it goes to the incentives of a company to truly fight the problem vs saying the right things but looking the other way when convenient. For us, we typically work with customers who are victims of fraud and the first time, we give them advice on how to better protect themselves and then refund them ~ the amount of profit we would have made. Ie we recoup costs but that’s it. For the financially aware, this is bad for our gross margin and profit but we do it to help customers the first time. After that though we expect them do implement some defenses otherwise our incentives aren’t aligned. Now however, we have Fraud Guard rolling out which should prevent much of the fraud in the first place. There are other forms of bad actors but that’s the most prevalent these days.
  - ocdtrekkie 3y ago
    That's a better answer than I expected, thanks! I agree it definitely makes sense to ensure your customers also have incentives aligned with yours.
spondylosaurus 3y ago
Only tangentially related—and I know the odds are low that you worked on this personally—but I want to give sincere thanks for the stuff you guys have shared via Twilio Labs. The netlify-okta-auth package in particular was exactly what I needed to complete a recent project, and the documentation it came with was nearly perfect.
- swyx 3y ago
  (former netlify here) - what does netlify + okta have to do with Twilio?
  - Jenk 3y ago
    https://github.com/twilio-labs/netlify-okta-auth https://github.com/twilio-labs/netlify-okta-auth Twilio authored/published the package GP is referring to.
- dpro 3y ago
  Nice to hear it's appreciated! (Developer of the netlify-okta-auth package here.)
matanyal 3y ago
Hey Jeff, Good to see that y'all are still pushing in the right direction! I left between the layoffs to pursue some innovation in the semiconductor space, but I look back fondly on my time at Twilio (Sendgrid)! Building APIs into businesses is no easy task, but I'm glad that there are those still fighting the good fight, even if the field changes. Best of luck to the Twilio of the future!
swyx 3y ago
first of all, big admirer of you. if you feel inclined, would really love your comment on OP's observation: > Sadly, us developers are not at the center of everything anymore at Twilio. it does seem the recent messaging has de emphasized that in favor of "Customer Engagement Platform". as the originator of "Ask Your Developer" (I read your book!) that has to sting a little bit. would love to hear your thinking on how Twilio continues to also engage developers in its next phase.
- jeffiel 3y ago
  At this phase we have to talk both to the business and to developers. Only talking to developers isn’t savvy or smart. AWS etc do the same thing. We can have good APIs and make a compelling case to the business why they should pay for it. I agree that sometimes our engagement messaging isn’t quite right for developers. As a developer, I prefer more technical and matter of fact marketing of products. But interestingly, as a CEO, sometimes I need companies to simplify the message especially in a domain I’m not an expert in and don’t want to become an expert in! For the entrepreneurs in the HN community, it’s talking features vs benefits. Developers love what a product does in a literal sense because they’re close to the implementation. Business folks tend to look for the benefit statements more as they’re not as close to the implementation. It’s a like to walk when you’re talking to both!
  - nasduia 3y ago
    I'd be interested to know how you think the business folks should judge the benefit statements without the detail that they could run by experienced developers? Surely they get a lot of vapourware pitches all the time.
  - johnwheeler 3y ago
    This sounds reasonable and reads much better than glossing over OPs post. Hard to argue against.
  - swyx 3y ago
    definitely. my most quoted dev marketing tweet is about me constantly having to relearn “"Talk benefits, not features" doesn't work!” in the early stage devtool startup playpen i operate in, but at your stage you have multiple equally impt constituencies. whenever i’m caught between a thesis and an antithesis i try to look for a synthesis to break through the apparent conflict. perhaps TWLO can find messaging that does the same. it feels like Msft is doing this well by essentially having a different group of brands that are keenly developer oriented, with Azure on the backend filling in all the enterprise messaging.
fallat 3y ago
This person businesses. And to others reading: Miguel didn't say anything bad about Twilio really, just that the alignments for them aren't there - and that's ok. Maybe it back fires and Twilio adjusts back to its dev-focused strategy. Businesses just evolve as they need to. If Twilio ends up being "bad" it just means there's now a spot for someone else to form "The Good Twilio" :) See: the many Google competitors, the many smartphone competitors, the many VPN competitors, etc...
alberth 3y ago
Hi Jeff If I understand the page for Fraud Guard correctly, this appears to cost money. Seems like Twilio should be filtering spam (a) by default / auto-enabled for all and (b) at no cost to the user. Much like how spam is included & auto enabled for all (and free) from Gmail/Outlook/etc.
- jeffiel 3y ago
  It's no cost to the user! Defaults are rolled out to everybody, but the users opts-into aggressive protection because of the risk of false positives. Note, this is Verify today. All Programmable SMS customers will get it soon as well.
  - alberth 3y ago
    FWIW, the “Cost of Terminating Each SMS” is what confused me.
holografix 3y ago
What better example of Twilio becoming a completely sales driven organisation than this opportunistic and self serving response, with a paragraph directly lifted from you sales 101 deck no doubt. Well done!
dools 3y ago
Hey there, this is tangential but you just launched limited MMS support in Australia, but no voice and not 2-way and from what I can gather only on the Optus network. I offer a virtual mobile number that does voice, txt and mms in Australia which could be globalised, interested in chatting?

rsync 3y ago

Haha. Yes, fighting the good fight - doing god’s own work.

ocdtrekkie 3y ago

Question: What does Twilio do with the profit it does make off those bad actors once it discovers they are bad actors? Probably my top issue with companies like Google which make a ton of money off of crime is... they keep the money from the crime! That's a perverse incentive to at least do a poor job preventing it. I remember visiting the Twilio offices when it was still tiny during a Google Glass related thing. I still have the T-shirt.

ITB 3y ago
You have the CEO of a public company come out to play and address a public post, which is pretty cool! Your attacking style of questioning just makes people like Jeff less likely to engage with the community. You could frame the same question in a more constructive style.
- bornfreddy 3y ago
  (for the record, I didn't downvote you) Curious, what in GP's question rubbed you the wrong way? To me it seemed like a legitimate question. I'd actually like to know the answer myself because in the end it always comes down to incentives. But maybe I missed some nuance? (not a native english speaker, obviously) Anyway, hoping for the answer to the question, and that it is taken in a positive way.
- ocdtrekkie 3y ago
  I actually don't have a strong issue with Twilio, and I think it's a good question that concerns me about other larger companies which also have problems with bad actors on their platform. It is potentially something that CEO could use as a huge differentiator if they want to as well. It definitely wasn't meant to be attacking in style, and I also wasn't aware this was the CEO. =) That being said, I'm not a scary individual, I assume I am softballing compared to what a CEO faces day to day.
- AJayWalker 3y ago
  I didn’t take ocdtrekkie’s question as attacking. How would you have phrased it to be more constructive?
- itsoktocry 3y ago
  >come out to play Jeff is the CEO of a public company, and hence works for shareholders. It's in Jeff's interest to engage with the community, and we are glad he's here. We certainly don't need to tiptoe around delicate sensibilities though...
jeffiel 3y ago
It’s a good question because it goes to the incentives of a company to truly fight the problem vs saying the right things but looking the other way when convenient. For us, we typically work with customers who are victims of fraud and the first time, we give them advice on how to better protect themselves and then refund them ~ the amount of profit we would have made. Ie we recoup costs but that’s it. For the financially aware, this is bad for our gross margin and profit but we do it to help customers the first time. After that though we expect them do implement some defenses otherwise our incentives aren’t aligned. Now however, we have Fraud Guard rolling out which should prevent much of the fraud in the first place. There are other forms of bad actors but that’s the most prevalent these days.
- ocdtrekkie 3y ago
  That's a better answer than I expected, thanks! I agree it definitely makes sense to ensure your customers also have incentives aligned with yours.

spondylosaurus 3y ago

Only tangentially related—and I know the odds are low that you worked on this personally—but I want to give sincere thanks for the stuff you guys have shared via Twilio Labs. The netlify-okta-auth package in particular was exactly what I needed to complete a recent project, and the documentation it came with was nearly perfect.

swyx 3y ago
(former netlify here) - what does netlify + okta have to do with Twilio?
- Jenk 3y ago
  https://github.com/twilio-labs/netlify-okta-auth https://github.com/twilio-labs/netlify-okta-auth Twilio authored/published the package GP is referring to.
dpro 3y ago
Nice to hear it's appreciated! (Developer of the netlify-okta-auth package here.)

matanyal 3y ago

Hey Jeff, Good to see that y'all are still pushing in the right direction! I left between the layoffs to pursue some innovation in the semiconductor space, but I look back fondly on my time at Twilio (Sendgrid)! Building APIs into businesses is no easy task, but I'm glad that there are those still fighting the good fight, even if the field changes. Best of luck to the Twilio of the future!

swyx 3y ago

first of all, big admirer of you. if you feel inclined, would really love your comment on OP's observation: > Sadly, us developers are not at the center of everything anymore at Twilio. it does seem the recent messaging has de emphasized that in favor of "Customer Engagement Platform". as the originator of "Ask Your Developer" (I read your book!) that has to sting a little bit. would love to hear your thinking on how Twilio continues to also engage developers in its next phase.

jeffiel 3y ago
At this phase we have to talk both to the business and to developers. Only talking to developers isn’t savvy or smart. AWS etc do the same thing. We can have good APIs and make a compelling case to the business why they should pay for it. I agree that sometimes our engagement messaging isn’t quite right for developers. As a developer, I prefer more technical and matter of fact marketing of products. But interestingly, as a CEO, sometimes I need companies to simplify the message especially in a domain I’m not an expert in and don’t want to become an expert in! For the entrepreneurs in the HN community, it’s talking features vs benefits. Developers love what a product does in a literal sense because they’re close to the implementation. Business folks tend to look for the benefit statements more as they’re not as close to the implementation. It’s a like to walk when you’re talking to both!
- nasduia 3y ago
  I'd be interested to know how you think the business folks should judge the benefit statements without the detail that they could run by experienced developers? Surely they get a lot of vapourware pitches all the time.
- johnwheeler 3y ago
  This sounds reasonable and reads much better than glossing over OPs post. Hard to argue against.
- swyx 3y ago
  definitely. my most quoted dev marketing tweet is about me constantly having to relearn “"Talk benefits, not features" doesn't work!” in the early stage devtool startup playpen i operate in, but at your stage you have multiple equally impt constituencies. whenever i’m caught between a thesis and an antithesis i try to look for a synthesis to break through the apparent conflict. perhaps TWLO can find messaging that does the same. it feels like Msft is doing this well by essentially having a different group of brands that are keenly developer oriented, with Azure on the backend filling in all the enterprise messaging.

fallat 3y ago

This person businesses. And to others reading: Miguel didn't say anything bad about Twilio really, just that the alignments for them aren't there - and that's ok. Maybe it back fires and Twilio adjusts back to its dev-focused strategy. Businesses just evolve as they need to. If Twilio ends up being "bad" it just means there's now a spot for someone else to form "The Good Twilio" :) See: the many Google competitors, the many smartphone competitors, the many VPN competitors, etc...

alberth 3y ago

Hi Jeff If I understand the page for Fraud Guard correctly, this appears to cost money. Seems like Twilio should be filtering spam (a) by default / auto-enabled for all and (b) at no cost to the user. Much like how spam is included & auto enabled for all (and free) from Gmail/Outlook/etc.

jeffiel 3y ago
It's no cost to the user! Defaults are rolled out to everybody, but the users opts-into aggressive protection because of the risk of false positives. Note, this is Verify today. All Programmable SMS customers will get it soon as well.
- alberth 3y ago
  FWIW, the “Cost of Terminating Each SMS” is what confused me.

holografix 3y ago

What better example of Twilio becoming a completely sales driven organisation than this opportunistic and self serving response, with a paragraph directly lifted from you sales 101 deck no doubt. Well done!

dools 3y ago

Hey there, this is tangential but you just launched limited MMS support in Australia, but no voice and not 2-way and from what I can gather only on the Optus network. I offer a virtual mobile number that does voice, txt and mms in Australia which could be globalised, interested in chatting?