Might be interesting to see other convert options besides time worked, like convert prices to "# of meals donated to starving children in Africa" or % of something larger/more expensive the person wants too...opportunity cost...
Just curious, why would you "bet heavily" Twilio overtakes Blackberry's market cap "soon"?
It's an interesting view to have, considering you know Twilio's value has been free falling (they are down like -60% in the last few months) and as of this week they just gained a new competitor with more money than them.
I have no clue what is going to happen, but wondering if I missed something as you seem pretty confident.
1. Focus. Twilio does communication. What does Blackberry do these days? Hell if I know, a bit of everything and nothing. They've lost a lot of credibility in a lot of enterprises after those companies moved over to iPhones and Androids.
2. Ease of integration. Also, related to that, is the encryption component really required? Most companies that have Twilio integrated aren't going to swap it out for this, I assume. Some might, most won't. It's more of a niche offering.
There's a lot this Blackberry product can't do, because you need to integrate the key exchange in an app. Twilio handles functionality outside of apps (i.e. plain SMS and voice) as well.
3. Ramp up. Just because you announce a new product doesn't mean it'll be generating hundreds of millions in the next few quarters. It'll take years to ramp up + have it generating decent revenue. They haven't planted their seeds yet, so to say.
4. Momentum: Twilio might be down 60% after a massive run up after its IPO, but it looks like it the stock has found support now. Blackberry however is down over 96% from the height of 2007.
5. Acquisition potential. They're close to Amazon. I wouldn't be surprised if they acquire the company within the next 6-12 months.
Unsure as to how this will play out, but I'm more bullish on Twilio than I am on Blackberry. Actually, I just bought some shares last month at $28.
Blackberry however is down over 2300% from the height of 2007.
It cannot be more than 100% down. It's roughly 96% down from it's height in 2007.
That said, it seems quite disingenuous to use the absolute peak of Blackberry when it was almost a decade ago. You could easily look at BBRY over the time frame since Twilio IPO'd and see that BBRY was flat or slightly growing.
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Apart from that, I agree with everything else you said except for (5), can you explain how Blackberry is 'close to Amazon'?
If Amazon decides to partner instead of build, I think that's an excellent sign. Amazon has also participated in their last investment round I believe, before they went public. And I vaguely remember reading something about Jeff Lawson and Jeff Bezos knowing each other well, but I'm not entirely sure whether that's correct and/or if I remember that right.
Twilio and Amazon do appear to have connections. Lawson worked at Amazon briefly. Rick Dalzell is the former CIO of Amazon and sits on Twilio's board (I would imagine he knows Bezos better than Lawson).
But executives from two companies having a close relationship is not a reason why a company acquires the other. There needs to be a catalyst. Friend's don't buy friend's companies without good reason. Are the gains way way way better than staying 2 separate companies who are partners? Did the little company fuck up and needs help getting out?...
Twilio might be an acquisition target. But I would be surprised if it's Amazon. Many reasons but mainly if Jeff Bezos starts buying public tech companies at a premium and in a price range that's 3x larger than anything Amazon has ever acquired, well I will eat my frickin shoe.
Never know of course, you may be right, maybe there is valuable IP there that AWS needs or maybe Jeff and Jeff are way better friends than anyone thought...
With that said, maybe Salesforce is a buyer? They were also a Twilio Series E investor and Benioff will buy fucking anything it seems without rhyme or reason and at any price. I wonder if there is extra office space in that big building he built and needs filling up, dude loves shopping.
Btw that link...Businessinsider is not a reliable nor accurate nor ethical source for business news. They are basically a tabloid churning out sensationalist BS and clickbait and opinions dressed as fact. Be wary.
Best of luck on your trade. Looks like you got a good price too. cheers.
No. In tech, the only windows to worry about is the one made by Microsoft.
Ski Instruction has been around even longer than the tech industry, did you miss out on the window of opportunity to become a ski instructor due to saturation?...
I realize the irony of this comment: But Marty Chavez is one of the few openly gay, latino Wall St. execs. Great, diversity, progress... This wasn't mentioned in the article and to be honest, that is rare and it was cool to read on article focused on Marty's skills as a professional banker (a good one) without feeling the need to bring up his personal life.
This looks really interesting as an intermediate stage, but I'm not sure I'm even really interested. Any suggestions for something quite a bit less expensive for someone on a budget that teaches the basic principles?
1. Russia and China have no real need or use for counterfeit (or real) paper US dollars. What the hell would they do with them? These countries have GDPs in the trillions of dollars.
Nice post. If I may add one coping skill that may work well for folks, especially those who strongly exhibit the "hyperactivity" in ADHD:
One alternative to stream-of-thought writing when getting started is stream-of-thought speaking into a recording device.
Basically if you can't sit down and write that paper? Try bouncing around the room as you feel you need to but put a voice recorder in your hand and speak the words you want to write in the paper. Then continue with the next editing/rewriting steps as needed.
This doesn't work for all types of writing. But when it does fit, what you thought would take hours in front of blank pages suddenly is a first draft done in a fraction of the time. Sure lots of editing is needed, but seeing a multi-page rough 1st draft you created (without touching a keyboard btw) is huge boost of a start.
Might be interesting to see other convert options besides time worked, like convert prices to "# of meals donated to starving children in Africa" or % of something larger/more expensive the person wants too...opportunity cost...