Founders’ Email to Clubhouse Employees
blog.clubhouse.com
blog.clubhouse.com
https://techcrunch.com/2021/04/07/twitter-said-to-have-held-...
The hard truth is software can't be patented and Twitter could copy the concept verbatim without paying them a penny.
edit: actually looking at some posted salaries it seems some employees were given quite a lot of equity
And then get shut down a few years later in the medium-term, similar to Vine.
This has nothing to do with AI at all. Clubhouse was a kinda cool social network that came out at exactly the right time during COVID. AI is something we've been working towards since the 50s, and over the next few years will change absolutely everything.
I think at this point it's obvious that Clubhouse was not worth $4B (10% of Twitter's final sale price!), so no point in arguing about that. The interesting question is: what combination of bad judgement and groupthink made anyone think it was in the first place.
Alternatively, is was a COVID-specific fad with a doomed user experience / network model that never expanded beyond the SV cultural bubble.
So the investors and founders would have converted $4B in Twitter stock to cash almost 1:1, that's not bad.
there was also a guy who sold a browser to Apple for over $100 million.
1- https://www.dirt.com/gallery/moguls/tech/jan-koum-house-beve...
2- https://www.superyachtfan.com/yacht/moonrise/owner/
3- https://www.thedrive.com/news/26322/these-are-the-10-drool-w...
Well. I guess he is happy with it. What's worse is I guess most people would take that deal at some point.
I was enthusiastic about it, and possibly even more enthusiastic about it as I finally got my first invoice (yes, they didn't start billing right away, but they were very open about their plans, unlike Telegram who always just said something like "it isn't that expensive anyway, someone is shouldering it and we have a plan").
https://web.archive.org/web/20051004080642/http://www.freemy...
In fact, it was very predictable as I said here before the acquisition talks that Twitter would push on with using Spaces instead of buying Clubhouse. [0]
The hard truth was that Clubhouse launched too slowly and even Twitter Spaces launched faster than Clubhouse to release their Android app. [1]
The invite system, slow release of the Android app caused them to lose steam to Twitter and Discord during the social audio race of 2021 at the time. [2]
[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26044382
I know you and your coder friends use Android despite having plenty of money, but the general public sees Androids as the budget option.
It depends on which market you are looking at. In the US market Apple apparently has a 57% share according to https://www.statista.com/statistics/620805/smartphone-sales-....
- The majority of mobile apps that only launch on one native platform (but are eventually available on both Android and iOS) launch on iOS first.
- The majority of mobile apps that are only available on one native platform are only available on iOS.
The with tooling available today, there is almost no technical reason not to. Most brands/apps can't afford to create some fake exclusivity.
I stopped using Clubhouse after being an early user for a couple of months. Some conversations were good, but most weren't quality conversations and over time I stopped paying attention to the app. I think the final blow was Twitter spaces which I don't pay attention to either.
> we’re scaling back our org by over 50%
That was it.
Probably the expensive lesson learned here is don't bet your company on short-term trends (like COVID lock downs) that can be disrupted by a twitter hackathon.
One minor nit: don't use phrases like "people who are departing" in letters like this it just feels off. If you want to act like you're owning it then you need to own it.
> "we work hard to support the people who are departing"
Anyways wish those who are being axed the best of luck (it's a tough market right now) and hope the company is able to realign on a trajectory for success.
hindsight is 20/20. you shouldn't necessarily be deterred by building something that a large company can also build. there have been plenty of examples that contradict this point.
BUT there's nuance here. i think in this case, the venn diagram of the userbase at Twitter & the users on clubhouse is basically a circle: the type that love to ingest information, stay on top of bleeding edge trends, be on top of what "thought leaders" have to say, information influencers, brand builders, etc. This demographic of people that would immediately get a lot of use out of a clubhouse clone built directly into Twitter. Clubhouse messed up royally here by not selling
It seems they tried to go after the golden goose (build a platform) but instead existing platforms basically ate their lunch. That coupled with the changing social dynamics from reopening were too strong headwinds to weather with their current business model.
What this means is they are basically back to square one, and need to build a new product and pray they get to PMF. If they are lucky they will have some reusable components.
It will be interesting to see what happens to them and what they choose to go after in the next stage of their journey.
https://www.businessinsider.com/airbnb-layoffs-generous-seve...
[0] https://www.shortcut.com/blog/clubhouses-name-is-now-shortcu...
Is it unusually nice that such an early start-up is giving 4 months, acceleration, and more? Yea! A lot of A- and B-stage layoffs have paid far less.
But with so much funding, it’s very very hard to see this move as anything other than massive C-level incompetence. Good job trying to make it look like accountability though.
Clubhouse’s case is much closer to the explosive growth that physical country clubs and golf courses saw in late 2020 and 2021. It’s a niche product that caught serious waves. I guess some VCs like to compare high ROI with athletic excellence but hockey is actually nothing like surfing.
Advertising dollars chase the masses, and what the masses want is, well, celebrities, the good looking, the attractive, and the funny. The public is chasing dopamine hits, and advertisers chase the public.
> If you are among those impacted, you will receive a calendar invite to a 1:1 meeting with a manager in your department within the next 10 minutes.
Dropbox also today:
> If you've been impacted, you'll be sent a calendar invitation within the next 30 minutes for a 1:1 with a leader on your team https://blog.dropbox.com/topics/company/a-message-from-drew
A billion monkeys slinging shit at each other is.
I think they missed an opportunity to pivot into voice chat for websites/apps as a service. I see big value in how Discord does ambient voice chat as a feature of a server, and I think that could translate well into smaller communities that live outside Discord in websites/apps. Provide the service in an easy to use slick API/SDK, and handle all the heavy lifting of voice data/p2p etc.
I agree that a16z has a lot of hubris, and their more recent investments seem to be going off the rails a bit (entirely personal opinion), but I don't think they would argue at all over the idea that most of their investments _won't work_.
This math breaks down when you’re unilaterally pushing up valuations and writing massive cheques. That your concentration and downside. It’s why Andreessen lags its peers on returns. If you’re a founder, take their cash (obviously), but understand you’re closing doors (so take a lot of it).
Is this common?
Though, as the price of computers have come down, it's less common for folks to not have a computer at home - it's still a wonderful gesture that's very low cost.
I'd give them at least 5 years [0] to run out of money without funding and a maximum of 10 years of existence that they will either be shutdown or acquired.
Really?
No