psswrd12345

> "If there's something so fundamentally wrong with him, why does he have such broad support?"

Stock options and a carefully built cult of personality, my friend

Altman is a classic sociopath, tread carefully.

"But Altman would be a good source."

No he wouldn't. This is the definition of a biased source. I am sure he would provide a totally unbiased view of why his own Board found it necessary to suddenly take him out completely of his own company when he is THE public face of a massively growing industry.

This space is so incestuous and protecting of its own at its own expense. Good grief.

Exactly.

"Firing Sam is absolutely one of the dumbest things a BOD has ever done in history."

You sure about that? This take is going to age like milk once facts come out.

Kara is an access journalist who has been holding Altman up as the "next Jobs" for a while now. She has no credibility as anything other than an opinionated "journalist" and it would not be surprising if her "sources" are none other than Altman himself.

This thread is about SNAP's financial results, and SNAP's valuation has long been dependent on future growth prospects. Ranking within the top 20 is not a good sign to that end, especially given how SNAP managed to lose $1.5B in the last year and has not put forward any credible plan on how they might make a sustainable return for shareholders.

This. SNAP has been a publicly traded company for 6 years, one cannot just ignore and hand wave away this expense, especially given how much growth prospects have deteriorated.

There are even fewer than can have that many and yet still lose $1.5B.

Ranking top 20 of free apps in US is hardly a barometer of future potential of a company that has never exhibited an ability to return steady profit to shareholders, and hardly bodes well for their future growth prospects.

Is there anything funnier than money incinerating "tech" companies' non-GAAP EBITDA? "Hey, sure we may have lost $1.5B, but look if we ignore over $1.3B of stock based compensation and a few other very real expenses, we actually made money!"

Fintechs are just neo banks, but with far worse customer service, far less supervision, and tech company valuations. BNPL companies are especially in for a reckoning as sanity slowly returns to markets.

It was named after Margaret Hamilton, not Alexander

Sad state of affairs with bitcoiners pretending to care about El Salvadorans - a country most did not know existed a month ago and could still not point out on a map - in an increasingly desperate attempt to make number go back up.

Ethereum isn't a currency

Might not be "necessary", but sure as heck makes all that a lot easier. Sure, one could design their own system that accomplishes all of those features, but why if there's an existing infrastructure layer that anyone can build on that already offers it? Especially a non-profit that likely lacks the technical expertise and resources?

Today, Ethereum uses about 1/6 energy consumption of bitcoin, while providing much more utility. But will change later this year as it transitions to proof-of-stake, at which point Ethereum's energy consumption will be negligible.

https://www.wired.co.uk/article/blockchain-cryptocurrency-en....

Verifiable donations, fully transparent reporting/auditing, no restrictions on who can donate, NFTs tied to donations that can be used for virtue signaling online, etc.

This + the NFTs will make for truly excellent virtue signaling.

Amazing how short sighted HN is when it comes to NFTs. Blindly accepting the "bad for climate" tripe and showing utter ignorance to the upcoming transition away from energy guzzling proof-of-work to a proof-of-stake world. Sad to see this community act so willfully ignorant to all things crypto.

100% this, very eloquently said

Never make the mistake of confusing luck for genius.

>Another possibility is that you have a high risk tolerance as well as an uncommon knack for this sort of thing that most people don’t have.

Ding ding. Which is why returns won't last as the information asymmetry curve is flattened.

And the apps that offer deliver do so at a loss. The economics do not work so long as people need to get paid. You do not _need_ to use delivery services to pick up fro trendy restaurants that represent a bad equilibrium to all parties asides from yourself. This was a market inefficiency enabled by cheap capital.

I do not have access to "restaurant books", but I do visit many in my area and I make a point to speak with both the restaurant folks handling take out orders and the loitering individuals running for these apps. The restaurants are universal in saying it is bad for their business, but they have no choice. The deliverers tend to not care -- they are focused on maximizing deliveries. Anecdotal, for sure, but it fits with what has been reported in WSJ and elsewhere.

Making up for losses on individual orders by ramping up volume is a tired and true way to lose even more money.

That's fine, but you should be paying those hefty delivery fees and not the restaurant. And these fees will only go up now that venture capital is less likely to subsidize losses.

The apps may be convenient to the user, but they cause direct harm to restaurants. They have become a tax. These apps may have value in a world full of cloud kitchens, but until then, they are a parasite and represent a bad equilibrium.

These food delivery companies are unnecessary middlemen, and generally leeches. Their revenue (note: not income, as they still lose money) comes at expense of restaurants. The economics simply do not work. Please stop using these apps and deal with the restaurants directly.