Hacker News Reader

Comment by neom | Hacker News Reader

A rising tide lifts all boats. Maybe a decent time for a capex heavy business with mediocre metrics to go public?

The answer sits on the 4th page:

We have increased the percentage of our revenue from segments which we believe benefit from attractive growth dynamics. In 2019, over 85% of our revenues came from our Multicloud Services and Apps & Cross Platform segments, which we refer to as our “Core Segments”. In contrast, in the twelve months ended September 30, 2016, less than 10% of our revenue came from our Cloud Office and Managed Cloud Services service offerings.

Basically Rackspace went from being a hosting company with "fanatical support" to someone who manages your AWS account and your cloud apps. They still offer their traditional bare metal servers, and they have their cloud, but that's not where the growth is.

Looks like gross profit margins decreased in aggregate by almost 4% in both "growth" categories of their Core Revenue (page 79). Doesn't look good for future margin expansion opportunities.

Mediocre metrics is generous from my experience working with them.

A rising tide lifts all boats.

What about boats that are anchored or moored?

For that matter, what about the wrecks on the bottom of the ocean, and the survivors bobbing on the surface?

>What about boats that are anchored or moored?

Well how else were you going to wash the sides down?

Those too. You put enough extra length in the anchor chain to make sure of it. Did you think that moored boats all sank when the tide came in?

Not that anyone will see this but regarding this comment's siblings:

It seems like you don't understand the metaphor unless you each mean to imply that The Economy goes through frequent regular cycles of significant expansion and contraction where every expansion reaches a consistent, predictable high point before contraction brings it back down to a consistent predictable low point.

But it can still accurately represent the people who are "left behind" in the economy. You cannot just say "Ah yes, the tide is going up. Therefor everyone is safe and dry in their boats as they rise with the tide" as an excuse to ignore people who need help.

The tide might lose steam if Biden wins the election. Though I doubt there will be any carnage similar to the dot com bust. For one, interest rates are super low and I don't see them rising anytime soon, even if the Fed raises rates, the ceiling will be around 3-4%.

The Covid induced tech euphoria might die down but I am willing to wager that won't be the case. People's habits once changed are very hard to fall back, especially when the new habits have a net positive economic impact. Time saved in commuting, air travel etc. The events industry might totally die down though. So there will be some negative impact as well. Other than these specific verticals such as events and tourism, I bet the market will favour tech innovations now more than ever.

So yeah, this is probably the right time for any tech company to go public, not just those with mediocre metrics.

Funny, if you just re-write your post with the opposite points, it reads exactly the same and has the same apparent merit.:

The tide won't lose steam if Biden wins the election. Though there will be carnage similar to the dot com bust. For one, interest rates are super low but will rise sometime soon, when the Fed raises rates at least 3-4%.

The Covid induced tech euphoria might die down and I am willing to wager that will be the case. People's habits once changed may change again, especially when the new habits have a net positive economic impact. Time saved in commuting, air travel etc. The events industry might totally boom though. So there will be some positive impact as well. Other than these specific verticals such as events and tourism, I bet the market will sour on tech innovations now more than ever.

So yeah, this is probably the right time for any tech company to go public, not just those with mediocre metrics.

We didn't manage to raise rates to 2.5% in the longest economic expansion of modern history and you are thinking that they will be hitting 3-4% "soon"?

> The tide might lose steam if Biden wins the election.

Are you suggesting Biden will increase corporate taxes? Because if so, I seriously doubt it. Biden agrees with Trump on 70% of the issues if not more.

Yep, in addition to increasing corporate taxes to 28%, Biden's plan is to ensure that corporations will pay at least a minimum tax, regardless of all the deductions they can avail.

https://in.news.yahoo.com/joe-bidens-tax-plan-may-wallop-the...

Yeah, except Biden is a moderate Republican, so I doubt it. It's a neat primary rhetoric for sure.

He's listed as a Democrat, though he may be to the right of where you personally want him to be.

Let's not confuse the issue.

The American political left/right scale is very silly on the international level. Republicans attack standard Party-Line Democrats as Socialists when in reality the vast majority of Democrats would be considered right wing in the EU and the Republican Party are more like Far Right extremists a la AfD, UKIP, etc.. Sanders himself would hardly be center-left in most EU parliaments.

Thank you. You expressed what I wanted to say better than I could.

Wait, what? Biden is a moderate Republican? I’m not American, I do not understand this comment. Can you explain?

Biden is a Democrat the same way DPRK is democratic. That is in name only. He is very much on the right side of the spectrum, the reason he's considered left is because the Republicans have moved so far to the right over the past several decades that you can call yourself a Democrat for being what would be considered a moderate Republican in the 80s.

The policies he's for are what the Conservative Party is for in the UK.

> The policies he's for are what the Conservative Party is for in the UK.

This may have been true the mid 2000s through 2015, but the Conservative Party in the UK is now dominated by the extreme right "European Research Group" (your DPRK comment is apt with regards to them), who are far more aligned with the right of the Republican party of today.

Point taken, but even if you look at the Tory party under DC, it was clearly a right-wing party. Not extreme right, but very firmly right.

That is the philosophy that Biden represents. My problem is with the American definition of left/right where somebody like Biden/Obama gets called a socialist. That's insane since by international standards they're not even left-wing.

It doesn’t matter what his policies are. The greatest power a President has that affects policy long after he is gone is his ability to nominate judges with lifetime appointments.

I hear this all the time but I have to say I have not seen actual data that supports it.

To take perhaps the highest-profile issue when it comes to judges: access to abortion remains federally protected today despite the last 5 Republicans promising to nominate judges to reverse that.

If RBG had retired or passed away before the recent abortion case, Roe v Wade would almost certainly have been overturned fully or partially a few days ago. The court voted 5-4 to uphold and whatever hyperconservative federalist society nutjob Trump would have nominated to replace her would virtually have guaranteed the opposite result.

Abortion isn't the only relevant case that the court could overturn, we have decisions like Citizens United that have essentially gutted the political process for a generation and in the past few days the courts have handed massive wins to Churches and conservatives that allow them to discriminate freely. To pretend the courts don't have massive power to dictate daily life in the US seems to be denying obvious truths.

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/04/supreme-court-decision-in-lo...

And that’s only because there have consistently been a majority of liberal judges.

Just this term they made decisions both forcing states to fund religious schools if they find secular private schools and in a separate decision, said that religious institutions have the right to discriminate.

Now we have a condition where my taxes must pay for people who could conceivably discriminate against me.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com