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Payndz posted:Probably more than Twitter will. 
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Nov 7, 2022 09:37
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Lead out in cuffs posted:Also the latest reports are that they didn't pre-sell any advertising for next year like they usually do because the big advertisers don't trust Elon. I'm not sure how much we're talking about, but that's likely in the hundreds of millions at least of missed revenue. The spoken of presale would have accounted for (iirc?) a fifth of their anticipated income for the coming year, but when the advertisers got into a Q & A with the company, the newly Elon-helmed relations came off as evasive and incompetent enough to get them to drop out and flee from the negotiating table. If this is not rectified by some other means, it infers that twitter's gross revenue can already expect a decline of 20% or more for 2023 well before you account for any of the other recent disruptions which appear concerning, which is really quite amazing to be able to say just a week into Musk's tenure. He is really not handling this well in any conceivable way. Laws of chance suggest he could have gotten something right if even by accident, but I have yet to see a single action by the company since Musk took over which appears rationally built around sustainable revenue.
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Nov 7, 2022 10:59
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Kavros posted:The spoken of presale would have accounted for (iirc?) a fifth of their anticipated income for the coming year, but when the advertisers got into a Q & A with the company, the newly Elon-helmed relations came off as evasive and incompetent enough to get them to drop out and flee from the negotiating table. If this is not rectified by some other means, it infers that twitter's gross revenue can already expect a decline of 20% or more for 2023 well before you account for any of the other recent disruptions which appear concerning, which is really quite amazing to be able to say just a week into Musk's tenure. Thing is that actually getting sustainable revenue out of a social media site is very tricky in the first place. When you're literally an emerald mine failson whose big break was selling luxury gimmick cars...
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Nov 7, 2022 11:31
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Ghost Leviathan posted:Thing is that actually getting sustainable revenue out of a social media site is very tricky in the first place. When you're literally an emerald mine failson whose big break was selling luxury gimmick cars... wasn't his first big break paypal, and tesla is more recent?
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Nov 7, 2022 11:37
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I think Musk has been part of a team performing some sort of flashy role to investors at previous companies and for some reason he's decided to make announcements on running Twitter without running it past anybody.
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Nov 7, 2022 12:02
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Watching this man be forced to buy a company he didn't want for billions more than it is worth and then flailing around like a pissbaby as the employees and users and advertisers are all mocking him/rebelling/telling him to get hosed is just the most amazing spectacle and I'm here for it.
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Nov 7, 2022 13:28
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Who is going to tell Musk that the purpose of the blue checkmarks was to prevent exactly the impersonation problem that is now pissing him off?
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Nov 7, 2022 14:04
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All the parodies of himself, obviously.
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Nov 7, 2022 14:39
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It would be really funny if internally there’s no distinction between “verified” and “paid” blue ticks so they can’t separate them out again later
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Nov 7, 2022 14:53
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TACD posted:It would be really funny if internally there’s no distinction between “verified” and “paid” blue ticks so they can’t separate them out again later The verified who aren't paying lose their ticks in <30 days regardless so that implies something.
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Nov 7, 2022 15:05
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Aw I was hoping all the currently verified users would have to start paying up or lose their precious ticks
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Nov 7, 2022 15:09
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CmdrRiker posted:Who is going to tell Musk that the purpose of the blue checkmarks was to prevent exactly the impersonation problem that is now pissing him off? So no-one he'll listen to.
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Nov 7, 2022 15:26
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TACD posted:Aw I was hoping all the currently verified users would have to start paying up or lose their precious ticks That's what is happening, I think.
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Nov 7, 2022 15:29
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pumpinglemma posted:Everyone, or at least everyone not currently working for him. Jokes on you, he won't listen to the people working for him either.
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Nov 7, 2022 15:32
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The only people Elon is listening to are the dumbest people on the planet.
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Nov 7, 2022 15:48
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Mr. Fall Down Terror posted:the way to make money on an LBO is to use other people's money to buy the company, make the company pay the debt, and then sell off any useful bits of the company until you just walk away from the hollowed out company which you stuffed full of debt So this is not quite right. The thing you gotta realize is LBOs have been going on for decades now at this point: banks know what they're getting into. The bank that lends the money is not who gets screwed for the extra value: it's the existing creditors and all future unsecured creditors who get screwed. At its core, an LBO basically is where you buy a company with little money down - say, 10-20%. The rest of the money is raised by incurring new secured debt where the company itself is the borrower and all company assets are collateral. First thing to understand is the debt. The debt is known to be higher risk than usual. The banks aren't shocked that when you borrow 80% of a company's value that puts strains on the company. So they compensate by (a) demanding collateral, which means that in the event of bankruptcy they get paid first; and (b) demanding a very high interest rate. The interest rate on a loan - and specifically, how much above a "risk-free" rate (generally defined as the treasury rate) - reflects how risky the loan is. Riskier borrowers pay higher interest rates, to compensate for the amount of times they don't actually pay back the loan. Secured loans (think your mortgage: if you don't pay, the bank gets the collateral) generally are lower-risk and, thus, lower interest rate. But for LBO loans, generally the interest rate is quite high and the loan is secured by a first lien on all assets and covenants to make sure it stays that way. So, while the company is outside of bankruptcy, the banks clean up. They get paid handsome interest rates each year, making tons of money. If the company doesn't go bankrupt, this has made them stupendous amounts of money. But what if/when the company goes bankrupt, what happens? They clean up again. They have a first lien on all assets, meaning that they get paid before anyone else does. Also, they will have stuck something called a "make-whole" in their debt documents, which entitles them to a fat extra fee for the "damages" caused by being paid back early. So they will assert a claim for, like, 110-120% of the face value of the debt. They will probably get it (make-wholes shouldn't be allowable in bankruptcy but a number of appeals courts have allowed them, the one odd exception being the usually-awful 5th Circuit which is the only one to have looked at them and gone "lol get the gently caress out"). They will extend a "DIP" loan (a loan to fund the bankruptcy) that requires the bankruptcy basically be run by them and that the company be turned over to them. They will get some amount of money, some amount of take-back debt, and the equity in the company. They may wind up booking a profit off the bankruptcy - and even if they take a small loss, they made scads of money off their interest. They will structure the covenants in their debt to force the company into bankruptcy before too much value is lost. Oh, also, the banks charged massive underwriting fees for this debt. Though that does come with downsides - it means you're stuck with the debt if nobody else wants it. What about the private equity owners? Well, everyone understands this easily enough. They loot the company to get their initial money back as quickly as possible. Then, they have only upside. If you paid, basically, nothing to own a company then the 25% chance it avoids bankruptcy and pays down that debt is a massive return on your investment. If you loot the company properly you take little risk. Yes, the banks theoretically want to stop you from looting it too much, but they know how this game is played and it will be pre-negotiated. If you can keep looting it, great - but since you own the upside once you have gotten your investment back you have some incentive not to over-loot the company. Ideally, you want to sell the company to someone else in the next few years. Who gets screwed? It's the unsecured creditors. If you had loaned the company money before the LBO, you lent to a strong business with low debt. Now, uh, you're behind a massive amount of debt that will get paid first. Usually unsecured bonds have some covenants to prevent the company from layering a shitload of secured debt on top if you, but if not, you're hosed. But unsecured bondholders usually have lawyers, good ones, and if they get hosed it's sort of well, write a better contract next time. But who else is an unsecured creditor? Well, if your company has a pension plan: you are. Pension plans are generally unsecured so if the company chooses to under-contribute to it, then layer a ton of debt on top, the retirees get hosed. Trade creditors are unsecured: almost everyone ships goods and gets paid on their invoice some weeks later (say, 60 days). A financially weak company will just stop paying the trade and they'll build up a massive debt backlog that gets hosed in the bankruptcy. When the bankruptcy comes, those unsecured creditors will get told they are "out of the money" and tough luck, you're not getting paid, the banks get everything. They will fight it, but they'll have a very weak hand. A number of lawsuits have alleged that LBOs are a "fraudulent transfer" - a transfer made with the actual intent to hinder, delay, or defraud creditors; or a transfer made without "reasonably equivalent value" while the company was insolvent. Those lawsuits, if successful, can undo parts of the LBO and recover funds for unsecured creditors. However, those are very hard lawsuits to win - especially since something called the "safe harbor" exists, where a fraudulent transfer lawsuit cannot undo a transaction made "in connection with a securities contract" (and subject to some other trivially createable requirements) - and, say, buying out the public shareholders of a company generally is a securities contract. So in the end, the cost of throwing some money to the unsecured creditors to get them to settle those claims (or, just beating them in court) is just a cost of doing business for an LBO. Now the thing is, none of this should be relevant here. Elon paid $44 billion, and took out less than $13 billion in debt secured by Twitter. That's putting up 70% of the value in equity, and only about 30% debt. That shouldn't be anything like an LBO - which is usually at least 80% debt - except that 80% debt assumes the company is worth what was paid for it. Twitter is acting like those badly overleveraged companies where someone put up a buck-fifty and took out the rest in debt, even though Elon wrote a $31 billion dollar equity check. Which means, in essence, that Twitter is probably worth no more than about $16 billion today (which would make it about 80% leveraged). In other words, the equity elon bought for $31 billion is worth about $3 billion. Probably less, since Twitter seems to be in dire straights immediately which a company only 80% leveraged wouldn't be.
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Nov 7, 2022 15:59
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Over-valuation? In a tech sector that's been almost entirely propped up by Venture Capital and unending hype for the last decade? Well I never! Yeah, the fact that Twitter's actual value is projected so low should of been proof that the tech sector is in a bubble and the check was going to come due any moment now. If musk hadn't signed the purchase agreement right away and actually did his due diligence he probably could of figured that out. This whole poo poo show is the gift that keeps on giving.
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Nov 7, 2022 16:17
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Arivia posted:wasn't his first big break paypal, and tesla is more recent? Elon's friend Peter Theil, who was running PayPal, bought out Elon's online payment processing company X for a ton of money. Then PayPal bought out Elon's ownership of PayPal while he was on vacation because he wouldn't stop trying to convert their Unix servers to Windows.
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Nov 8, 2022 00:54
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duz posted:Elon's friend Peter Theil, who was running PayPal, bought out Elon's online payment processing company X for a ton of money. Then PayPal bought out Elon's ownership of PayPal while he was on vacation because he wouldn't stop trying to convert their Unix servers to Windows. This is probably the funniest thing I learned about musk since this whole thing started. It's so hilariously petty on both Musk's end and also PayPal. Like a Russian nesting doll of stupid.
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Nov 8, 2022 01:07
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duz posted:Elon's friend Peter Theil, who was running PayPal, bought out Elon's online payment processing company X for a ton of money. Then PayPal bought out Elon's ownership of PayPal while he was on vacation because he wouldn't stop trying to convert their Unix servers to Windows. Yeah, he got fired during the depths of the dot-com crash because he constantly tried to spend more and more money on stupid whims. Dude is terrible at crisis management.
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Nov 8, 2022 01:13
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he is also, to this day, convinced that "x.com" was a better name than paypal and still thinks it will be the next evolution in online presence.
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Nov 8, 2022 01:25
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Well we will find out when the X app comes out pretty soon now.
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Nov 8, 2022 01:27
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withak posted:Well we will find out when the X app comes out pretty soon now. he's already made the x app 
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Nov 8, 2022 02:04
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man he wanted it to be called x.com and wanted it running x.org!! please control your instincts to offer corrects
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Nov 8, 2022 03:10
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Watermelon Daiquiri posted:man he wanted it to be called x.com and wanted it running x.org!! he should have called it ufo defense
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Nov 8, 2022 03:33
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i want to live in the timeline where old musky lost ownership(i assume he has it in THIS timeline) of the url, and has to pay something stupid high to get it back.
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Nov 8, 2022 04:32
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As far as I know the muskmelon still owns X.com, it's probably pretty valuable as single letter domain names go.
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Nov 8, 2022 04:51
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PhazonLink posted:i want to live in the timeline where old musky lost ownership(i assume he has it in THIS timeline) of the url, and has to pay something stupid high to get it back. He did in fact lose ownership of the URL when he was booted from Paypal, and bought it back from them after he got rich off Tesla. It wasn't publicly revealed how much he paid for it, but single-letter domain names don't come cheap these days.
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Nov 8, 2022 08:33
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Haystack posted:Dude is terrible at
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Nov 8, 2022 13:02
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Cheesus posted:
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Nov 8, 2022 13:51
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Arivia posted:he should have called it ufo defense Terror From the Dope
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Nov 9, 2022 13:42
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quote:"If activist groups can pressure advertisers, upon which Twitter is fundamentally dependent, to suppress free speech then that doesn't seem right." -- Musk Silence activist groups so they don't silence advertisers? What?
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Nov 9, 2022 17:53
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he's choosing to blame the nebulous, shadowy woke activist enemies of free speech which only exist in his head for collapsing revenue, instead of accepting that his largest customers (big companies with advertising budgets) are staying away from his dumpster fire website
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Nov 9, 2022 18:24
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Bad news for all the ex-twitter people looking for new jobs: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/09/technology/meta-layoffs-facebook.htmlquote:Meta Lays Off More Than 11,000 Employees I guess reality is finally catching up with the VR bullshit, thankfully before I ever have to attend and conference call in VR.
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Nov 9, 2022 19:13
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The big tech cos have been hoovering up talent they don't even need for years and it was only a matter of time. Really sucks if you worked there but at least the severance packages seem good.
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Nov 9, 2022 19:20
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withoutclass posted:The big tech cos have been hoovering up talent they don't even need for years and it was only a matter of time. Really sucks if you worked there but at least the severance packages seem good.
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Nov 9, 2022 19:22
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thekeeshman posted:Bad news for all the ex-twitter people looking for new jobs: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/09/technology/meta-layoffs-facebook.html
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Nov 9, 2022 19:28
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thekeeshman posted:Bad news for all the ex-twitter people looking for new jobs: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/09/technology/meta-layoffs-facebook.html Lyft just laid off 13% too. Some consultant somewhere figured out a number and sold it in.
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Nov 9, 2022 19:43
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Sagacity posted:To be honest, I actually quite like that someone is willing to pour literally billions of dollars in developing VR. Sure, I don't care about the business VR aspect either, but having all this R&D can't hurt and if it leads to more immersive fart apps I'm all for it. The only things VR's ever going to be really good for are gaming, porn, and maybe some IMAX-type movies where you can get really immersed. Nothing else justifies strapping all that bullshit to your head. None of the money that the Zuck spent goes anywhere towards furthering any of these areas, it's all just money down the drain developing software with no purpose.
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Nov 10, 2022 00:41
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thekeeshman posted:The only things VR's ever going to be really good for are gaming, porn, and maybe some IMAX-type movies where you can get really immersed. Nothing else justifies strapping all that bullshit to your head. None of the money that the Zuck spent goes anywhere towards furthering any of these areas, it's all just money down the drain developing software with no purpose. We have a flight training device at work that's worth six figures, uses three very expensive projectors, and still makes a lot of compromises in terms of realism to do it. If you could do it in an Augmented VR space, you could do the same thing in a smaller physical space for a fraction of the cost, while providing greater realism. I think the money-making aspects of VR haven't even started to be fully explored, and I find it absolutely ridiculous that Meta's first inclination was to do poo poo that had no point and no one asked for.
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Nov 10, 2022 00:55
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