Insiders say Google was interested in buying Snap for at least $30B last year
businessinsider.com
businessinsider.com
Why place an over one year old alleged offer in the media today?
Because the shares are free-falling, user growth quarter-over-quarter will likely be abysmal and float will drastically increase in 2 weeks.
The only possible sliver of hope for shareholders right now is a potential buyout. Remember how many times Twitter rallied on 'chatter' of a Google bid?
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/08/twitter-s...
https://www.cnet.com/uk/news/twitter-buyout-rumors-google-sa...
Edit: interesting number of down votes, is this such a far fetched conspiracy theory? If it was such an open secret at Snap, why has this not come out yet?
That said, if you're an insider still, you probably feel it's going to get better, so you hold. You're used to shares being illiquid and it's easy to continue seeing them as such. Plus, you get some bonus cash with follow-on RSU grants that are certainly being doled out.
I personally would probably recommend to cut losses and run - it looks more like Groupon, Gopro or Twitter right now than anything else.
Who is to blame? CEO and underwriters for overpricing their IPO? To me it looks like Snap was simply strangled by Instagram in the worst moment. The last private round was priced when it still looked like Snap would continue growing explosively, IPO was hence massively overpriced and employee options as well.
It probably is not helping company moral right now that the CEO gave himself an $800 million bonus for the IPO.
Source (paywall but free figure at the top):
https://www.theinformation.com/soon-free-to-sell-few-snap-em...
(In other words pass losses on to employees and guarantee [as much as possible] returns to investors despite risks.)
And yes, I am aware of the inherent discount for ISOs, so as an employee you still stand to make about 2/3rds the value of your options if the company is worth about as much as it was when you joined. This makes me a little suspect of the stated $15 strike price for ISOs, that doesn't sound like the typical 2/3 discount unless if the stock was privately worth $30-45/share at grant time.
Disclaimer: myself.
It feels like there should be a filter that considers who owns a paper, who the journalist has previously covered in depth, and what kinds of stories they're printing. Maybe something like a shill or hater score?
I'm not sure how easy this would be. Does anyone know if something like this exists?
> I'm not sure how easy this would be. Does anyone know if something like this exists?
Don't know of any such thing that exists today. But it shouldn't be that difficult. A simple database linking journalists, news organizations, to topics/companies/keywords/etc.
The data set shouldn't even be that large.
It is fairly common (and illegal!) for an insider to leak a fake buyout rumor to the media, in hopes that it will cause the stock price to rise.
That's what people think was happening with all those twitter rumors while ago.
It sounds like they were just internal rumors that spread around and then eventually got to a journalist.
Unless the internal sources directly and verifiably worked on drafting the proposal or discussing the concrete deal being purported - it's most likely inaccurate, overly optimistic hearsay.
Let's use our best judgement here and not humor the journalist for clicks and outrage.
How about they just unify what they already have on offer, and get it working properly (and maybe worldwide this time!) before messing with yet another service?
sigh
Google already had a unified account system, which covers a huge portion of the internet-using world: Google-accounts. It would be perfect for discovery and tying things together neatly with what they already have to offer.
If a contact your are chatting with in "Hangouts" (formerly Google talk and before that gchat?) also was using Duo on his phone... Google could show an icon for Due and offer a video-call to this person. If both systems used the same ID.
Instead they chose to create entirely new login systems and identities for their new IM systems. This needless fragmentation means I don't know which of my contacts are available on which of the many google-provided IM-services.
Some small changes here could really have significantly lowered the pain involved, and made all these different apps tie together in a way which would have been useful.
Now we just have a mess, getting worse every year, and I now refuse to use any of them for it.
I work for Google but opinions are my own.
I try not to post anything on Youtube or favourite videos or anything because it's tied to my "real" Google identity which is very traceable to me.
For the same reason I try not to link my Facebook or Google accounts to games and stuff I can help it (though I've mostly given up).
I did have a "fake" Facebook account for lots of stuff that wanted access to my Facebook feed and it's craptacular. Same for Google, but switching accounts for Youtube is a hassle,
That's very contextual IMO.
Having the same handle across various private communication tools provided by the same company makes sense.
Forcing you to use your real identity when making public comments traceable across the internet is something completely different.
Forcing Youtubers to use real identities was bad. For these IM services, creating new accounts was bad.
Exactly. It's almost been a year since Allo was released, which means we are due for an announcement of a new messaging app from Google. Likely something that combines Allo and Duo into a single app, and call it something like Trio.
Of course, when they inevitably split "Trio" into separate apps a year after release, they won't be able to stick with the same name convention.
OnePointFiveio B - For video
I'm not sure how far the talks went, though given that this is just coming out now, I'm guessing they didn't go very far. Would be interesting to know if the offer is still actually on the table like the article hints at.
This is the price you pay for giving up all voting rights. If Evan doesn't want to sell no sale, no matter how good of an offer is on the table. With voting rights atleast someone can hold the CEO's feet to the fire to make them consider the idea.
The Yahoo that was sold recently did not include the Alibaba stake. This is where the key value of Yahoo lies.
If you break it down, the Yahoo Alibaba + Yahoo Japan stake + Yahoo's final selling price equals Microsoft's $45/share offer
It's sad Yahoo chose to throw in the towel and spin itself off as an internet company rather than use the Alibaba stake to resuscitate.
Source: I was at Yahoo back then.
A business is a business, and if you lose it makes sense to admit it.
Actually, if mayer didn't sell a huge chunk of alibaba stake, the BABA stake by itself would be worth 120% of microsoft's bid.
YHOO owned 25% of alibaba. Alibaba is worth $400 B today. Microsoft's offer was $45 billion for YHOO.
That bid was terrible for YHOO shareholders. You do realize YHOO owned a ton of alibaba stock and yahoo!japan stock right? The alibaba shares alone that yahoo owned is now worth more than the $45 billion offer by MSFT. That's after Mayer foolishly sold off a huge chunk of alibaba shares a few years ago to go on her buying spree.
If steve ballmer had managed to buy YHOO, it would have been one of the greatest deals in history.
YHOO owned 25% of alibaba ( which is worth about $400 billion today ). YHOO also owned Yahoo!Japan which was worth $10 billion.
If MSFT bought YHOO back then, we would be calling Steve Ballmer and MSFT a genius today.
I do think the product team at Snapchat is stellar though, they are creative and innovative and in-tune with what young people want.
I do believe that the people working for snaptchat are trying their best, and they are innovative etc, its just seems that instagram itself has become the new hip and its seriously competing with snaptchat.
Kinda how Netflix vs HBO is a question of - how fast can Netflix become HBO before HBO becomes Netflix. Instagram is definitely trying their best to have part of its identity be Snapchat. What is Snapchat trying to become rapidly before Instagram subsumes Snapchat? The walls are closing in fast(like it happened with Twitter) and if they don't figure out the answer soon they will suffer the same fate.
Also internally I can't imagine how the Instagram engineers feel about their roadmap being "continue to copy and shoehorn Snapchat features into our app".
Who knows what would happen to WhatsApp if Google bought it? Could it become one of Google's current chat apps that no one uses?
The last that I can remember was YouTube, and that turned out very well for youtube and google.
http://www.businessinsider.com/groupon-google-deal-turn-down...
That's an unfair comparison imo.
Snapchat have bought an AI company in Eastern Europe that does those cat and dog filter on people.
Groupon was very easy to emulate, I don't think Snapchat is as easy as Groupon. The infrastructures to set up Snapchat and those AI filters and such is a bit harder.
They have enough tough-to-emulate problems to continue to be ahead of copy cats while continue to keep innovating and keep that rift.
Snap problem is making money now but that's the same with Twitter, Facebook (initially), Foursquare, etc...
I'm optimistic that they'll start making profit not sure if it'll be enough to satisfy their investor (e.g. twitter) but they will.
That's basically the only relevant question here. I doubt Snap would have been a better consumer product under Google's direction. They have a consistent habit of killing them off.
Could Google really significantly monetize Whatsapp? It seems Facebook can't - but at least Facebook can ensure their other revenue streams aren't decimated by free-and-fast Whatsapp.
Twitter is the picture of where they're going, best case scenario (the difference in risk of course being, Instagram isn't a serious threat to Twitter's existence). Twitter has four times the sales (annualized run-rate), more cash, a lower quarterly burn rate (now), with 23% less market cap.
Well, SNAP DAP > TWTR DAP, TWTR Average time spent per day: 1-2 minutes SNAP Average time spent per day: 30-35 minutes. So SNAP has 30X potential than dead twitter with no product innovation.
And then someone takes a screenshot and "blackmails" you with it later (read this concept of snap-blackmailing somewhere else just today)
1. They have very high power in changing their parents purchases.
2. Their word of mouth power is exponential compared to a guy who is 30 years old working in corporation.
3. 16-22 year olds are going to become 20-28 year olds in 4 years which is a real threat to facebook. This generation doesn't want to be part of Facebook.
Every time I interact with any sub-21 year old person, I ask them 2 questions:
1.What's the most popular social network among your group of friends? I'd estimate 7-9/10 say Snapchat. If it is Snapchat, I proceed with question 2.
2.Do you read/interact with the "Discover" section of Snapchat? (Because this is where I think Snapchat has the most potential to actually make money.) I'd say 5-7/10 say Yes.
In short, yes, kids still use Snapchat.
You sound like a fun person - JK. But among my conservative, Midwestern sub-21 family and acquaintances, the answer was surging to Snapchat around Christmas. Then they moved lifestyle posts to Instagram, and moved communication/socializing back to Facebook. Also, they don't often interact intentionally with the Discover section.
A lot of people post everything to both, but Instagram usage has massively increased over the last few months.
Snapchat is still my go-to, but I've been peer pressured into posting Insta Stories as everyone else is now there.
Edit: Oh and I never use the Discovery page, neither do my friends. It's annoying and mostly useless.
The Snap "streaks" or whatever was a smart engagement feature. But it could turn into a double edged sword- once you break the streak you might as well keep it broken.