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Comment by gozzoo | Hacker News Reader

This reminds me of superstar CEOs like Elizabeth Holmes, Jack Dorsey and especially Travis Kalanick.

Kalanick is a giant asshole, but also built an incredible company. He then proceeded to nearly destroy it out of arrogance. So did Jobs during his first stint as CEO.

Look at the heat Musk and Zuckerberg are taking these days. We would probably have a much different view of Jobs if he was in his prime in the social media era.

> We would probably have a much different view of Jobs if he was in his prime in the social media era.

...which one could take to mean that a lot of these peoples' problems today are self-created (see: not knowing when to shut up)

An "incredible" company thanks to asshole methods. Being an asshole was a prerequisite in that case and cannot be separated.

Kalanick built an incredible idea. His company still loses billions of dollars per year.

I've listed a ton of references, but my favorite quote is from [3] :

     The firm actually lost nearly $1.1 billion (GAAP net income) against just $2.22 billion in net revenue in the fourth quarter.
     
     It works out to a -49 percent GAAP net margin.

Also, the graphs on [5] are pretty damning.

So in my opinion, the idea is great (actually, truly freaking fantastic to me), but the company is burning through cash at an incredible (and often growing) rate.

To me, that is not the making of an incredible company.

[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-08-25/uber-lose...

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-06/uber-spen...

[2] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/13/ubers-loss-jumped-61-percent...

[3] https://news.crunchbase.com/news/understanding-uber-loses-mo...

[4] http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/growth-vs-profits...

[5] https://www.forbes.com/sites/lensherman/2017/12/14/why-cant-...

How much is going to CapEx? I thought they burnt at such a high rate because of their autonomous R&D.

Dorsey is successfully, simultaneously steering two of the most important public tech companies on earth. Square particularly is a booming success story as a business. Twitter, which was supposed to be doomed financially, has been delivered to sound profitability and still has $4.5 billion in cash.

Please explain to me how he fits into the category with Holmes and Kalanick.

I find it hard to put Square as one of the most important public tech companies. Sure, it might be successful, but is it important?

I'd say yes. Anything that reduces friction in commerce thereby creates more commerce. Time will tell I guess.

As someone who ran a business that accepted credit cards before Square (and others, I'm sure) made it a lot easier, I think it could qualify as important.

Square may seem less important because of Stripe. This is also a very tech-centric viewpoint, as many B&M stores use Square.

A number of B&M vendors that used to be cash-only now accept credit cards. Definitely an impact, there.

Each of them can be put in their own category and is/was very successfull in their own way. The common thing is that they are Steve Jobs imitators to the point of meaningless details like wearing same clothes as him or listening to the same music.

There are many reports about Jack Dorsey being inspired/obsessed by Steve Jobs. Running 2 companies also rings a bell.

As for Sqare, yes they are headed towards (big)? success, but they are not there yet. And from what I see they are much better at operations than inovations, which is different from what Steve Jobs was known for.

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