4 ms·

A lot of talk has been going on about this, and a lot of comments start with a few set of presumptions. One presumption, usually left unexplained, is that ther

by pen2l 11y ago

A lot of talk has been going on about this, and a lot of comments start with a few set of presumptions. One presumption, usually left unexplained, is that there are a lot of "unicorns" that will collapse. I am most interested in classifying these unicorns, and speculating which will fall and which won't. Here's my list -- I want your thoughts on it. 1) Uber -- will not go down 2) Dropbox -- will go down 3) Airbnb -- will not go down, unless threat from regulation becomes stronger 4) Snapchat -- will go down 5) Twitter -- will go down 6) Facebook -- will suffer significantly 7) Square -- will go down 8) Apple will be entirely unscathed 9) Google will suffer, but be largely fine 10) Microsoft is suffering already. It will continue to suffer, but will not go down.

georgeglue1 11y ago
Dropbox is a pretty inexpensive consumer product. Assuming they're profitable, they probably aren't any more likely to go down than netflix.
netcan 11y ago
I disagree about FB. They got a lot of criticism before and immediately after their IPO for not justifying their value. Today they are genuinely making a lot of money. Their advertising platform it is valuable not unlike Google's. I think the only thing likely to harm facebook is losing users.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  > I think the only thing likely to harm facebook is losing users. Which is supposedly happening.
  - fivedogit 11y ago
    Obviously this is just one vague, anonymous data point, but I deleted (not just deactivated) my FB account and I feel like a weight has been lifted from me. I don't have to look at a falsely curated feed of how great everyone else is doing anymore. The more people flirt with quitting, the more they realize their feeds have been reduced to attention whores and babies (their real friends stopped posting long ago), the mroe they'll quit and it'll just snowball. FB messed up by getting too big. I'm going to post my true thoughts when my grandfather might read them? Nope.
- Jayd2014 11y ago
  My problem with Facebook is that they didn't diversify their products much (except for Oculus). Once FB is not fashionable anymore and users are using another platform (see WhatsApp and why FB bought them) it will be the end of FB. Can they reinvent themselve? not sure, but they surely need to invest more in R&D and diversify their products like Google, instead of putting everything on IM/Social.
capkutay 11y ago
No one will go down unscathed if the bubble bursts. Even companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft will be hurt when consumer investors react by selling off their "tech" portfolio and moving it into other assets like stock in pharma or bonds. They could lose 20-30% of their value if consumer investors perceives a bubble burst. Companies like Uber, Dropbox, Twitter, Facebook can just downsize their operations and keep their business afloat since they all have substantial revenues. The ones hurt the most will be these series A-D companies that haven't started bringing in serious money yet all while raising 10s of millions of dollars. There are probably hundreds of pre-IPO companies that have raised $50m+ in the past few years.
lancewiggs 11y ago
my 2c on that list. 1): It's questionable whether or not Uber has a network effect that sustains it as a leader in any market. The taxi industry is catching up, and so is regulation, and I suspect that some markets will become very competitive. This is not a defendable monopoly. 2): Dropbox is under attack from free/cheaper equivalents but defending well. It is still the easiest to use and have an incumbency advantage, but has made a few too many missteps (photos) to be comfortable. 3): AirBnB is under attack from booking.com and the like, but is a pleasantly strong business for now. 4), 5) and 6) all are fashion (or nightclub) businesses where the crowds happen to be, and the more they try to monetise the more they upset the crowd. Crowds can leave at any time. 7) Square face competition from Apple Pay and the like for payments, and payments is where they make their money. Out of the USA payment systems are far more advanced. 8) Judgement day will come for Apple when they successively fail to launch things that have an edge on everyone else, and as with RIM the decline could be fast. For now they are well ahead but my own pick is that Huawei will become the giant to beat. 9) Google is fat and happy, but their core revenue base is advertising, and when crashes arrive advertising falls. 10) Microsoft is resurgent, and I believe on the early steps of a long term turnaround program. The switch to the cloud means we are less reliant on any particular OS but Microsoft Office is dominant for business.
- fivedogit 11y ago
  Smart analysis. I object to your classification of Twitter, though. I was originally a Twitter skeptic, but the truth is, they've built a central hub where Snoop Dogg, the Pope, POTUS and @pmarca all converse. Very powerful. They need to do more, but they own more than a fad, IMO. I especially agree on Apple. What Microsoft has done recently is great. I hated them with the passion of a thousand suns when I was in college, but Satya seems to get it. He knows that if you put out a browser that causes devs around the globe to have to program exceptions because it doesn't behave like the others, they will hate you for it. (Doubly. Once for technical reasons and again for acting like a monopolistic ass.) And what you gained from some niche technical benefit, you've lost 1000x in goodwill and, ultimately, bad PR. I'm actually rooting for them now. It's crazy.
- mamcx 11y ago
  8) Is the worse analysis you pick on ;) Apple have a strong position. If google/ms survive, then apple will.... Plus, Apple already bite the dust, almost lethally. Now they have enough cash to survive for long, and enough goodwill, marketshare, etc to keep them afloat.. Look, if MS have survived for so long being the evil INC, and hated far more than Apple..
Ezhik 11y ago
What's a path for something like Twitter or Facebook to die that isn't slowly fizzling out of existence like MySpace? Is there a chance that they run out of money even with that bazillion users still using them daily?
- mcintyre1994 11y ago
  One thing that would hurt Facebook a lot is the perception that you can't make good money on apps, since they make a lot of theirs on mobile app advertising now. Not really clear how that would happen though - at the very least IAP games are making a lot of money, and carrying TV advertising budgets. Their business model looks pretty stable, assuming studios can deal with or defeat the fact mobile games tend to be short lived. They could lose a lot of small advertisers, the startups that throw some of their seed funding into Google and Facebook's advertising pools a long way before having a real business model if those companies dry up - but I don't see it coming close to killing them.

by pen2l 11y ago

georgeglue1 11y ago

Dropbox is a pretty inexpensive consumer product. Assuming they're profitable, they probably aren't any more likely to go down than netflix.

netcan 11y ago

I disagree about FB. They got a lot of criticism before and immediately after their IPO for not justifying their value. Today they are genuinely making a lot of money. Their advertising platform it is valuable not unlike Google's. I think the only thing likely to harm facebook is losing users.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
> I think the only thing likely to harm facebook is losing users. Which is supposedly happening.
- fivedogit 11y ago
  Obviously this is just one vague, anonymous data point, but I deleted (not just deactivated) my FB account and I feel like a weight has been lifted from me. I don't have to look at a falsely curated feed of how great everyone else is doing anymore. The more people flirt with quitting, the more they realize their feeds have been reduced to attention whores and babies (their real friends stopped posting long ago), the mroe they'll quit and it'll just snowball. FB messed up by getting too big. I'm going to post my true thoughts when my grandfather might read them? Nope.
Jayd2014 11y ago
My problem with Facebook is that they didn't diversify their products much (except for Oculus). Once FB is not fashionable anymore and users are using another platform (see WhatsApp and why FB bought them) it will be the end of FB. Can they reinvent themselve? not sure, but they surely need to invest more in R&D and diversify their products like Google, instead of putting everything on IM/Social.

capkutay 11y ago

No one will go down unscathed if the bubble bursts. Even companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft will be hurt when consumer investors react by selling off their "tech" portfolio and moving it into other assets like stock in pharma or bonds. They could lose 20-30% of their value if consumer investors perceives a bubble burst. Companies like Uber, Dropbox, Twitter, Facebook can just downsize their operations and keep their business afloat since they all have substantial revenues. The ones hurt the most will be these series A-D companies that haven't started bringing in serious money yet all while raising 10s of millions of dollars. There are probably hundreds of pre-IPO companies that have raised $50m+ in the past few years.

lancewiggs 11y ago

my 2c on that list. 1): It's questionable whether or not Uber has a network effect that sustains it as a leader in any market. The taxi industry is catching up, and so is regulation, and I suspect that some markets will become very competitive. This is not a defendable monopoly. 2): Dropbox is under attack from free/cheaper equivalents but defending well. It is still the easiest to use and have an incumbency advantage, but has made a few too many missteps (photos) to be comfortable. 3): AirBnB is under attack from booking.com and the like, but is a pleasantly strong business for now. 4), 5) and 6) all are fashion (or nightclub) businesses where the crowds happen to be, and the more they try to monetise the more they upset the crowd. Crowds can leave at any time. 7) Square face competition from Apple Pay and the like for payments, and payments is where they make their money. Out of the USA payment systems are far more advanced. 8) Judgement day will come for Apple when they successively fail to launch things that have an edge on everyone else, and as with RIM the decline could be fast. For now they are well ahead but my own pick is that Huawei will become the giant to beat. 9) Google is fat and happy, but their core revenue base is advertising, and when crashes arrive advertising falls. 10) Microsoft is resurgent, and I believe on the early steps of a long term turnaround program. The switch to the cloud means we are less reliant on any particular OS but Microsoft Office is dominant for business.

fivedogit 11y ago
Smart analysis. I object to your classification of Twitter, though. I was originally a Twitter skeptic, but the truth is, they've built a central hub where Snoop Dogg, the Pope, POTUS and @pmarca all converse. Very powerful. They need to do more, but they own more than a fad, IMO. I especially agree on Apple. What Microsoft has done recently is great. I hated them with the passion of a thousand suns when I was in college, but Satya seems to get it. He knows that if you put out a browser that causes devs around the globe to have to program exceptions because it doesn't behave like the others, they will hate you for it. (Doubly. Once for technical reasons and again for acting like a monopolistic ass.) And what you gained from some niche technical benefit, you've lost 1000x in goodwill and, ultimately, bad PR. I'm actually rooting for them now. It's crazy.
mamcx 11y ago
8) Is the worse analysis you pick on ;) Apple have a strong position. If google/ms survive, then apple will.... Plus, Apple already bite the dust, almost lethally. Now they have enough cash to survive for long, and enough goodwill, marketshare, etc to keep them afloat.. Look, if MS have survived for so long being the evil INC, and hated far more than Apple..

Ezhik 11y ago

What's a path for something like Twitter or Facebook to die that isn't slowly fizzling out of existence like MySpace? Is there a chance that they run out of money even with that bazillion users still using them daily?

mcintyre1994 11y ago
One thing that would hurt Facebook a lot is the perception that you can't make good money on apps, since they make a lot of theirs on mobile app advertising now. Not really clear how that would happen though - at the very least IAP games are making a lot of money, and carrying TV advertising budgets. Their business model looks pretty stable, assuming studios can deal with or defeat the fact mobile games tend to be short lived. They could lose a lot of small advertisers, the startups that throw some of their seed funding into Google and Facebook's advertising pools a long way before having a real business model if those companies dry up - but I don't see it coming close to killing them.