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Salesforce has lost half its market cap in the last ~year. Spending time and money to acquire a calendar scheduler shows just how badly they have lost the plot.

by paxys 8mo ago

Salesforce has lost half its market cap in the last ~year. Spending time and money to acquire a calendar scheduler shows just how badly they have lost the plot. I know this is an HN meme but can someone look at https://www.getclockwise.com/overview https://www.getclockwise.com/overview and explain why an internal team couldn't build this in a couple of weeks? And it's not like Salesforce is lacking engineers - they employ 83,000 (!!) people globally.

moomoo11 8mo ago
Clockwise has thousands of companies using it already. Buying the company gives them those customers. They shut it down presumably so they can do something with those customers they bought. Making software is easy. Don’t kid yourself. If you’re a swe you’re an expense line item. Getting distribution is hard.
- QuesnayJr 8mo ago
  Just shutting it down seems like the worst way to keep the customers. They'd be better off rebranding it as Salesforce Clockwise and then slowly transitioning them. I suspect it's more of an acquihire.
- paxys 8mo ago
  How does shutting the product down get them any customers? "Hey you've been paying for this calendar thing for a while, but won't be able to any longer. Go use one of their competitors instead. BTW have you tried our CRM?"
  - mushufasa 8mo ago
    To be fair, Salesforce IS a CRM and can offer people project/time/calendar/team collaboration features, even if it's not a DIRECT competitor to a modern wave of time management startups.
    - skeeter2020 8mo ago
      You don't typically buy clients via acquisition and then cancel them before you convert them, though...
  - moomoo11 8mo ago
    Because you might shift them to another product line? I don't personally care about Salesforce and think they're a low/mediocre company, but having seen acquisitions at my last company we'd shut them down but roll them into our ecosystem. Obviously there's churn, but that's why you spend MONTHS doing due diligence to figure out if the strategy is sound. For example, most of the customers of one product we acquired were already using our product for other things, or competitor platforms. So, we managed to roll a bunch of enterprise customers onto our platform. Its not just LOOK AT ME I WROTE SOME CODE :D lol Or they might just be buying out the team to help them build out something to address gaps in their product. But it is not just "why can't they just make it themselves"
ares623 8mo ago
Is the Clockwise founder mates with anyone in Salesforce?
- Eufrat 8mo ago
  Probably. The Clockwise folks were from a startup that was bought out by Salesforce before they left to do this. IMHO, the problem with Clockwise is that there was never a compelling product or a moat they could build with in the space. It was trivial for Google or anyone else to just implement similar enhancements.
  - paxys 8mo ago
    Yeah, that would explain it.
  - tedivm 8mo ago
    I interviewed with Clockwise years ago and was offered a position, but ultimately I decided to pass for this exact reason. This system is great, and I actually used it and loved it, but it was a feature rather than a product.
apparent 8mo ago
Typically when a company is acquired and the product is swiftly shut down, the value sought was the team. Although Salesforce has plenty of engineers, they may not have a team that does what the Clockwise team does.
- santoshalper 8mo ago
  Or they may just think the clockwise team is great and is willing to pay a small premium to get them.
  - apparent 8mo ago
    Yeah, the question is how much they paid and what other options the Clockwise team had. I wasn't going to speculate about that, since I've no idea.
  - jacquesm 8mo ago
    That means that for the acquirees that was the only option on the table so GP is likely right.
  - deleted 8mo ago
    [deleted]
JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
> Salesforce has lost half its market cap in the last ~year They're also at record revenue [1]. [1] https://investor.salesforce.com/news/news-details/2026/Salesforce-Delivers-Record-Fourth-Quarter-Fiscal-2026-Results/default.aspx https://investor.salesforce.com/news/news-details/2026/Sales...
- chronic20001 8mo ago
  > They're also at record revenue [1]. I too have revenue of $1 billion but with $2 billion in expenses
  - hallway_monitor 8mo ago
    I mean wow, talk about making it up in volume, but hell I would take it.
  - JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
    “FY26 operating cash flow of $15.0 billion, up 15% Y/Y, and free cash flow of $14.4 billion, up 16% Y/Y. Returned $14.3 billion to shareholders, including $12.7 billion in share repurchases and $1.6 billion in dividends.” Like, literally bullet pointed.
- pjc50 8mo ago
  Presumably that's why their stock is down. If you want to have a record stock price you've got to be really unprofitable.
  - steveBK123 8mo ago
    Right and do circular investments in your customers
- zipy124 8mo ago
  This is because the stock market valuation of a company isn't nearly as simple as a revenue/cash-flow multiple. It also accounts for predicted growth in the stock, and it's return over the risk-free rate. As interest rates are staying high, and inflation is stickier than expected, one would expect stocks to get cheaper as the risk-free rate is higher and investors lean more towards gilts/bonds/bills/commodities. In addition people are betting that AI is going to reduce the growth in software stocks. If this is true or not is another thing, but that is the current majority opinion amongst large-scale investors.
deleted 8mo ago
[deleted]
bitwize 8mo ago
Because the features need to be planned by product people, broken down and turned to stories in JIRA. The dev teams need to get together and play planning poker to determine who gets what story and approximately how long it should take. They need to coordinate with the DevOps and security teams in order to ensure it complies with company requirements/best practices concerning authz/authn, o11y, etc. The good news is the company is headed into a bright and glorious future of productivity. The CEO has been completely one-shotted, and over last weekend he vibe-coded together a companywide TODO app. The submit button glitches out of existence and it authenticates any company email address without even a password, but its existence means the CEO is a dev now just like you. Token and SLOC count KPIs will be implemented next quarter.
Reason077 8mo ago
> "Spending time and money to acquire a calendar scheduler shows just how badly they have lost the plot." It sounds like Clockwise was pretty good at what they did, perhaps even the best in its class. Salesforce presumably sees a need for these advanced scheduling features in it's own products, and they figure they can get them more quickly, more cheaply, and with lower risk by acquiring an already-built technology and team. ie: it's an "acquihire". But it's not like this is a one off. Salesforce has spent over $10 billion on acquisitions in just the last 6 months!

by paxys 8mo ago

moomoo11 8mo ago

Clockwise has thousands of companies using it already. Buying the company gives them those customers. They shut it down presumably so they can do something with those customers they bought. Making software is easy. Don’t kid yourself. If you’re a swe you’re an expense line item. Getting distribution is hard.

QuesnayJr 8mo ago
Just shutting it down seems like the worst way to keep the customers. They'd be better off rebranding it as Salesforce Clockwise and then slowly transitioning them. I suspect it's more of an acquihire.
paxys 8mo ago
How does shutting the product down get them any customers? "Hey you've been paying for this calendar thing for a while, but won't be able to any longer. Go use one of their competitors instead. BTW have you tried our CRM?"
- mushufasa 8mo ago
  To be fair, Salesforce IS a CRM and can offer people project/time/calendar/team collaboration features, even if it's not a DIRECT competitor to a modern wave of time management startups.
  - skeeter2020 8mo ago
    You don't typically buy clients via acquisition and then cancel them before you convert them, though...
- moomoo11 8mo ago
  Because you might shift them to another product line? I don't personally care about Salesforce and think they're a low/mediocre company, but having seen acquisitions at my last company we'd shut them down but roll them into our ecosystem. Obviously there's churn, but that's why you spend MONTHS doing due diligence to figure out if the strategy is sound. For example, most of the customers of one product we acquired were already using our product for other things, or competitor platforms. So, we managed to roll a bunch of enterprise customers onto our platform. Its not just LOOK AT ME I WROTE SOME CODE :D lol Or they might just be buying out the team to help them build out something to address gaps in their product. But it is not just "why can't they just make it themselves"

ares623 8mo ago

Is the Clockwise founder mates with anyone in Salesforce?

Eufrat 8mo ago
Probably. The Clockwise folks were from a startup that was bought out by Salesforce before they left to do this. IMHO, the problem with Clockwise is that there was never a compelling product or a moat they could build with in the space. It was trivial for Google or anyone else to just implement similar enhancements.
- paxys 8mo ago
  Yeah, that would explain it.
- tedivm 8mo ago
  I interviewed with Clockwise years ago and was offered a position, but ultimately I decided to pass for this exact reason. This system is great, and I actually used it and loved it, but it was a feature rather than a product.

apparent 8mo ago

Typically when a company is acquired and the product is swiftly shut down, the value sought was the team. Although Salesforce has plenty of engineers, they may not have a team that does what the Clockwise team does.

santoshalper 8mo ago
Or they may just think the clockwise team is great and is willing to pay a small premium to get them.
- apparent 8mo ago
  Yeah, the question is how much they paid and what other options the Clockwise team had. I wasn't going to speculate about that, since I've no idea.
- jacquesm 8mo ago
  That means that for the acquirees that was the only option on the table so GP is likely right.
- deleted 8mo ago
  [deleted]

JumpCrisscross 8mo ago

> Salesforce has lost half its market cap in the last ~year They're also at record revenue [1]. [1] https://investor.salesforce.com/news/news-details/2026/Salesforce-Delivers-Record-Fourth-Quarter-Fiscal-2026-Results/default.aspx https://investor.salesforce.com/news/news-details/2026/Sales...

chronic20001 8mo ago
> They're also at record revenue [1]. I too have revenue of $1 billion but with $2 billion in expenses
- hallway_monitor 8mo ago
  I mean wow, talk about making it up in volume, but hell I would take it.
- JumpCrisscross 8mo ago
  “FY26 operating cash flow of $15.0 billion, up 15% Y/Y, and free cash flow of $14.4 billion, up 16% Y/Y. Returned $14.3 billion to shareholders, including $12.7 billion in share repurchases and $1.6 billion in dividends.” Like, literally bullet pointed.
pjc50 8mo ago
Presumably that's why their stock is down. If you want to have a record stock price you've got to be really unprofitable.
- steveBK123 8mo ago
  Right and do circular investments in your customers
zipy124 8mo ago
This is because the stock market valuation of a company isn't nearly as simple as a revenue/cash-flow multiple. It also accounts for predicted growth in the stock, and it's return over the risk-free rate. As interest rates are staying high, and inflation is stickier than expected, one would expect stocks to get cheaper as the risk-free rate is higher and investors lean more towards gilts/bonds/bills/commodities. In addition people are betting that AI is going to reduce the growth in software stocks. If this is true or not is another thing, but that is the current majority opinion amongst large-scale investors.

deleted 8mo ago

[deleted]

bitwize 8mo ago

Because the features need to be planned by product people, broken down and turned to stories in JIRA. The dev teams need to get together and play planning poker to determine who gets what story and approximately how long it should take. They need to coordinate with the DevOps and security teams in order to ensure it complies with company requirements/best practices concerning authz/authn, o11y, etc. The good news is the company is headed into a bright and glorious future of productivity. The CEO has been completely one-shotted, and over last weekend he vibe-coded together a companywide TODO app. The submit button glitches out of existence and it authenticates any company email address without even a password, but its existence means the CEO is a dev now just like you. Token and SLOC count KPIs will be implemented next quarter.

Reason077 8mo ago

> "Spending time and money to acquire a calendar scheduler shows just how badly they have lost the plot." It sounds like Clockwise was pretty good at what they did, perhaps even the best in its class. Salesforce presumably sees a need for these advanced scheduling features in it's own products, and they figure they can get them more quickly, more cheaply, and with lower risk by acquiring an already-built technology and team. ie: it's an "acquihire". But it's not like this is a one off. Salesforce has spent over $10 billion on acquisitions in just the last 6 months!