Comment by sureaboutthis | Hacker News Reader

Comment by sureaboutthis | Hacker News Reader

I hear people mention Slack once in a while on various forums but I have no clue what it is. I do not know anyone who uses it so it's not something I, or anyone I know, feels a need for--otherwise we would be searching it out. And therein lies a problem. $16B for something few people need or want? I guess I have to look up Slack and see what it is.

EDIT: So I looked it up and it looks like something useful for a lot of remote workers that need constant, instant contact with people working on the same stuff at the same time. To me that's a pretty niche market. If I thought the phone or email wasn't good enough, I might pay $5/month for such a service. But irc works pretty good still today.

IRC isn't worth $16B

There's a venn diagram with an intersection of people who use Hacker News and people who don't know what Slack is, and it's literally just you. It's bizarre to me that you feel the need to share your opinion on the valuation of something you knew nothing about a half an hour ago.

That said, $16B seems to be about 4x more than I would have expected.

That I've been deeply involved in the design and implementation of both hardware and software for 40 years and know nothing about it, and don't know anyone in the industry who does either, is a comment on the $16B evaluation. Companies thrive on the needs and wants of people which is why Coke and Google and Microsoft stock prices are so high and maintain those levels. I don't find want and need for Slack among anyone I know. A small space but the same people have heard of and use Coke, Microsoft and Google.

On the contrary, I literally don't know anyone who doesn't know what Slack is. I'm not sure if it's a generational gap, corporate gap, or what, but I've used it at multiple organizations both in and out of tech.

The alternative interpretation of what you have said is that $16B is actually too low and that Slack is undervalued or at the very least it has a lot of room to grow.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com