I'm conflicted on falling standards for IPOs. On one hand, it's unfair for the exponential gains of pre IPO stocks to be restricted to "accredited investors". On the other hand, retail investors are entirely unfit to judge--and prone to be exploited regarding--the nuances of unprofitable companies. My hope is Twitter's resolution will be clean, so as to avoid polluting the 2017 pipeline.
While I concur with above, I think investors should have the option. I suspect that the parent was referring to Twitter having a string of issues since IPO. Over the 3 years they have faced significant problems like leadership change, product, revenue, m&a and this brain drain.
Twitter is an example of a company that has had poor performance and may have been to immature to go public.
> Twitter is an example of a company that has had poor performance and may have been to immature to go public.
What exactly do you expect of companies that go public? What you wrote, and seemingly reflective of a common sentiment, is an extremely loaded statement of what anyone should expect of "glorious publicly traded unicorns".
Unless Twitter committed fraud by not disclosing something, then there should no really no other expectation or aberration in their publicly traded status. The banks, board and the CFO priced the shares and they've been printing money for all their employees using the deep liquid market that all these people fawning over tech companies perpetuate.
So I'm a little confused at what is so interesting about their poor performance. Have you seen the stock market, some companies' shares go up, others go down.
I agreed with the parents sentiment but I think it should be up to the incestors. I also agree with you. I was stating why 3 years of being public it was still relavent to discuss the news of the original post.
That said, a public company that has an incomplete product roadmap-- or poduct, shows no profit and has a poorly understood revenue strategy is immature. GM has been public for a comparable amount of time. It is well understood what they do-- they make and sell cars. Twitter aggregates and dynamically prices advertising and monetizes information. It is much harder to understand a new business model and one that is not making money. It was not ready to IPO.
Yes, the market goes up and down. Twitter was a shitty company, still is a shitty company and will be a shitty acquisition. I understood that and I didn't buy it. Thats how the market works.
Edit: While the market goes up and down, Twitter has pretty much just gone down. It was in the 50s 2 years ago and has pretty much just fallen.
That's unfair to the original commenter,
JumpCrisscross, who was specifically talking about "accredited investor" status - where the government allows people with >$1M to make investments they forbid others to.
Yes, that law is trying to protect people with <$1M; but it does consequently deny them a class of opportunity - even if both company and would-be investor want it.
Pointing that out does not mean JumpCrisscross thinks people should have a right to invest in a company which doesn't want their money.
1) Angel investing is break even at best (I quote Paul Buchheit on this)
2) in a VC lead round, the VC firm will fight to keep out individuals as much as possible if said individual is not a professional investor of sorts (ex: you're Marc Benioff).
3) Access is a greater barrier to entry than funds or accredited investor status.
So when you combine the above, retail investors won't have access to great investment opportunities anyways, even when accredited investor status becomes defunct.
Seeing as Twitter is inaccessible in China, has generally been inaccessible for the last 5+ years, and that a widely used local substitute existed (Sina Weibo) -- it surprises me very much that Twitter even had a "China head" to begin with. The idea just seems like a non-starter.
Ah. (Can't read the article but I'll assume that's what it says.) Still... if she had those connections, they must not have been very good connections; the site still isn't available.
Eh. It's more about using her connections to sell Twitter's services to companies in China than it is about using her connections to make Twitter available to users in China.
Relevant portions:
> Twitter said its strategy in China hasn’t changed and that Ms. Chen’s main job is to sell services like advertising, data analytics and developer platforms to companies in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
> Underlying the messages were concerns that Twitter, which casts itself as a champion of free speech, was motivated to hire Ms. Chen as part of a strategy of compromise aimed at getting Chinese authorities to lift the block.
> A Twitter spokesman said on Tuesday that wasn’t the case and that Ms. Chen had been hired to take advantage of increased interest among Chinese companies in advertising on the platform to reach a global audience. “We have no plans to change anything about our service in order to enter the market,” the spokesman said.
> Twitter has consistently said it won’t compromise its service in order to operate in China. It described former CEO Dick Costolo’s first visit to China in 2014 as the executive’s attempt to learn more about the local culture and technology industry. His successor, Mr. Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter, has emphasized a dedication to the company’s values and mission, including freedom of speech.
This is supported by the Reuter's article which mentions her work on courting "potential Chinese advertisers for the social media platform" and growing "its Greater China advertiser base nearly 400 percent over the past two years."
Aside from businesses, people in HK, Macau and Taiwan are still a sizable market that use Twitter, where it's just behind Instagram in popularity and Sina Weibo isn't a thing there. The Twitter office is based in Hong Kong, just like Google.
This Reuters paragraph doesn't delve into the details, but apparently Ms. Chen was a bit controversial as China Twitter chief, according to the Wall Street Journal[1]. She had ties to China's military and some of her initial tweets came across as a bit nationalistic[2].
On a lighter note... for a 50-year-old, she is hot. We should all age so well... :)
he stepped over the line a little by becoming personal (not in a nasty way - hot etc). instead of shrugging it off and moving on, people decided to get offended. and then they ganged up wielding their anonymous downvoters. THAT is rude and uncivilized.
This is my biggest fear starting in China besides the pollution and cultural mismatch: A dozen local Chinese startups bootstrapping by copying you with the government and market heavily favoring domestic solution vs Western solution.
It puzzles me why so many people in the West are trying to chase after the elusive dream of making it big in China. I can't name any white person that made it in Chinese startup scene in the way immigrants have IPO'd in the US. I use race as an important metric to compare the two cultures. One, where anyone regardless of race can make it and have made it (even if it's extra harder for a non-white person depending on the industry) and the other, where only Chinese speakers and ethnic Chinese have a far higher advantage and restrict outsiders.
In addition, I don't know a single American using Weibo instead of Twitter.
Made in China just isn't good for branding and China isn't "cool' yet. Hell, even Chinese buyers will pay premium for western names and avoid locally produced good, if they have the money to spend.
I agree that Chinese startups start copying the product if it is a good product, but it also happens anywhere. In US, Europe, Southeast Asia... name any place. People has been copying each other for the entire civilization.
China is an unique example. The truth is China is in a totally different world with totally different culture(maybe not as different as before) and purchase habits, so localization is hell important in China! That's probably why software tends to be compete less well than hardware like Apple and General Moto, since it needs more localization to gain popularity.
Immigrants... Every citizen in USA was an immigrant 300 years ago... if you are talking about new immigrants, most of them had higher education in USA before they built a startup, which definitely makes it easier to have success since they know they country more. Also English is a more well-accepted language, that's probably the biggest reason why not so many Americans willing to study in China.
I am a Chinese so my opinion is likely to be biased.
30 comments
[ 18.4 ms ] story [ 613 ms ] threadTwitter is an example of a company that has had poor performance and may have been to immature to go public.
What exactly do you expect of companies that go public? What you wrote, and seemingly reflective of a common sentiment, is an extremely loaded statement of what anyone should expect of "glorious publicly traded unicorns".
Unless Twitter committed fraud by not disclosing something, then there should no really no other expectation or aberration in their publicly traded status. The banks, board and the CFO priced the shares and they've been printing money for all their employees using the deep liquid market that all these people fawning over tech companies perpetuate.
So I'm a little confused at what is so interesting about their poor performance. Have you seen the stock market, some companies' shares go up, others go down.
That said, a public company that has an incomplete product roadmap-- or poduct, shows no profit and has a poorly understood revenue strategy is immature. GM has been public for a comparable amount of time. It is well understood what they do-- they make and sell cars. Twitter aggregates and dynamically prices advertising and monetizes information. It is much harder to understand a new business model and one that is not making money. It was not ready to IPO.
Yes, the market goes up and down. Twitter was a shitty company, still is a shitty company and will be a shitty acquisition. I understood that and I didn't buy it. Thats how the market works.
Edit: While the market goes up and down, Twitter has pretty much just gone down. It was in the 50s 2 years ago and has pretty much just fallen.
Do we expect to be able to invest in Koch Industries or Cargill, which continue to be private? To me that's underlying sentiment.
Yes, that law is trying to protect people with <$1M; but it does consequently deny them a class of opportunity - even if both company and would-be investor want it.
Pointing that out does not mean JumpCrisscross thinks people should have a right to invest in a company which doesn't want their money.
But here's the thing:
1) Angel investing is break even at best (I quote Paul Buchheit on this)
2) in a VC lead round, the VC firm will fight to keep out individuals as much as possible if said individual is not a professional investor of sorts (ex: you're Marc Benioff).
3) Access is a greater barrier to entry than funds or accredited investor status.
So when you combine the above, retail investors won't have access to great investment opportunities anyways, even when accredited investor status becomes defunct.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-china-heads-past-ties-to...
Relevant portions:
> Twitter said its strategy in China hasn’t changed and that Ms. Chen’s main job is to sell services like advertising, data analytics and developer platforms to companies in China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
> Underlying the messages were concerns that Twitter, which casts itself as a champion of free speech, was motivated to hire Ms. Chen as part of a strategy of compromise aimed at getting Chinese authorities to lift the block.
> A Twitter spokesman said on Tuesday that wasn’t the case and that Ms. Chen had been hired to take advantage of increased interest among Chinese companies in advertising on the platform to reach a global audience. “We have no plans to change anything about our service in order to enter the market,” the spokesman said.
> Twitter has consistently said it won’t compromise its service in order to operate in China. It described former CEO Dick Costolo’s first visit to China in 2014 as the executive’s attempt to learn more about the local culture and technology industry. His successor, Mr. Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter, has emphasized a dedication to the company’s values and mission, including freedom of speech.
This is supported by the Reuter's article which mentions her work on courting "potential Chinese advertisers for the social media platform" and growing "its Greater China advertiser base nearly 400 percent over the past two years."
I'm not sure what 20161112 was talking about.
On a lighter note... for a 50-year-old, she is hot. We should all age so well... :)
1. http://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-china-chief-kathy-chen-d...
2. http://www.wsj.com/articles/twitter-china-heads-past-ties-to...
If you aren't old yet, or if you aren't female, it may be hard to understand.
/S
It puzzles me why so many people in the West are trying to chase after the elusive dream of making it big in China. I can't name any white person that made it in Chinese startup scene in the way immigrants have IPO'd in the US. I use race as an important metric to compare the two cultures. One, where anyone regardless of race can make it and have made it (even if it's extra harder for a non-white person depending on the industry) and the other, where only Chinese speakers and ethnic Chinese have a far higher advantage and restrict outsiders.
In addition, I don't know a single American using Weibo instead of Twitter.
Made in China just isn't good for branding and China isn't "cool' yet. Hell, even Chinese buyers will pay premium for western names and avoid locally produced good, if they have the money to spend.
China is an unique example. The truth is China is in a totally different world with totally different culture(maybe not as different as before) and purchase habits, so localization is hell important in China! That's probably why software tends to be compete less well than hardware like Apple and General Moto, since it needs more localization to gain popularity.
Immigrants... Every citizen in USA was an immigrant 300 years ago... if you are talking about new immigrants, most of them had higher education in USA before they built a startup, which definitely makes it easier to have success since they know they country more. Also English is a more well-accepted language, that's probably the biggest reason why not so many Americans willing to study in China.
I am a Chinese so my opinion is likely to be biased.