Category: Internet/Web Companies

Who Would You Invest In? Salesforce vs. LinkedIn

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I like playing this game.  It’s a game where you have to force yourself to choose to invest between two (arguably) overpriced companies.  I’m been doing it once a year between Foursquare and Quora.  Go ahead and make your vote there.

I read today in a good article about LinkedIn’s business that the two companies LinkedIn and Salesforce.com have the roughly the same market cap at $30 billion (Linkedin lately has cruised past it even more to $32).  So here’s the game: If you had to put 80% of your entire life savings into stock of one of these companies, which do you choose?  A breakdown:

LinkedIn:

  • Current market cap: $32 billion
  • 2013 Q2 revenue: $364 million
  • Net income last quarter: $3.7 million
  • Growth rate: 12% last quarter & 60% over the last 12 months

Salesforce

  • Current market cap: $30 billion
  • 2013 Q3 revenue: $957 million
  • Net Income in Q3: $76 million
  • Growth rate: 7% last quarter & 31% over the last 12 months

I think from these comparisons, you can see that SF is twice the size, but growing at half the rate. If both companies keep growing at the same rate, LinkedIn will be bigger in 5.5 years and almost double the size of Salesforce in 9 years. The market really rewards growth and doesn’t seem to care about profits from newish companies.

Personally, i’m putting my money into Salesforce, but it’s interesting to see how much the market loves LinkedIn.  In my daily work life, i use both. We have all our sales information in Salesforce and can’t operate without it.  All of tools plug into it (Eloqua, Totango, Desk.com, etc.).  At the same time we’re hiring and not a day goes by where i’m not looking at someone at LinkedIn or trying to contact them through that platform.  It’s proven to be invaluable when hiring.  I can see it breaking into new businesses and growing fast.

That said, i can’t see Salesforce being replaced any time soon – and the pricing is much better.  We pay less than $1000 a year for LinkedIn (for the ability to message people) but well over $30k a year for Salesforce.

Who would you bet on?

[poll id=”4″]

 

 

Apple Maps vs. Google Maps: A Rant

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I recently heard someone talk about what a bad move it was for Apple to release their own Maps app on the iPhone.  I’ve heard this maybe half a dozen times lately and I couldn’t disagree more.  We should all be happy this happened.  Here’s why…

About a year ago when there was no Apple Maps, the situation was this:

  • The default map app on the phone was Google maps
  • Apple had repeatedly been negotiating with Google to have them provide turn-by-turn directions and voice navigation in their app on the iPhone.  Google had turned them down time and time again so they could promote Android phones and claim some level of superiority.
  • Apple had no alternative but to accept that Google was sandbagging their iPhone app

Fast forward to today.  Apple releases Maps which has turn-by-turn directions that are way better than the old Google app.  Google was rendered to be an optional app on phone and because of this fact they stepped up their development efforts and made the Google maps app way better than their previous app.

Today iPhone users have two great options for maps and both options are way better than they had a year ago.  If Apple hadn’t done anything, we’d probably still be stuck with a second-tier version of Google maps.

So, Apple’s probably pretty happy with their decision.  The iPhone mapping capability is at the very least comparable to Android, something they couldn’t claim a year ago.

Ok, i can now go back to work.  Thanks for letting me rant.

May 2015 Update: 

Looking at this latest report you can see that 84% of cell phone users get turn-by-turn navigation while driving.  Looks like Apple made a good call to really shake up the platform to get that functionality in there.

Screen Shot 2015-05-27 at 9.44.41 AM

 

 

When Google Glass Wins

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I don’t really like Google Glass as it is now.  There’s no way that the look of it will ever let it go mainstream. However, i do like:

  1. how you can just click a button and video record everything you’re looking at
  2. Take a picture of what you’re seeing quickly and easily
  3. Overlay a map on top of whatever you’re viewing

What i want to happen is for them to build just these three use cases into normal looking glasses.  Get a few versions of Warby Parker that have Glass integration into them.  Then it’ll be sweet. I want to wear regular-looking glasses and go about my day and if i want just touch something and have it start recording.  That’s when Google Glass wins. 

PandoMonthly’s Fred Wilson Talk

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One of my new favorite things to do is watch the PandoMonthly videos.  They are really long – usually over 90 minutes – but it is a super in-depth interview with one of the internet’s big dogs.  My favorite one so far is a 2-hour video with John Doerr who worked early on at Intel and sits on the board of Google and Amazon. 

Last night i watched Fred Wilson’s interview.  Some highlights:

  • He talked about how it was a huge loss for Twitter to not buy Instagram.  He thought that with the trifecta of tweets, images and video, Twitter could challenge and possibly unseat Facebook.  But Twitter didn’t have the assets that FB had of pre-IPO shares or valuation to be able to offer them the amount they needed, thus they lost the sale.  He remarked on how it was just genius for Zuckerberg to recognize that possibility. 
  • He talked about CEO’s of his portfolios such as the Twitter trifecta, Etsy and Tumblr.  How Twitter is like the Beatles in that it had multiple creators who were all vital at different stages: Jack at stage 1 in building the product, Ev at stage 2 in building the company and Dick at stage 3 in building the business.  He also points to this terrific post about how Tumblr is all about David Karp and is really a one-person product. 
  • On that he told a story about how at Etsy, they were promoting the #2 guy to the CEO position and he went to the board and said, “hey, you’re promoting the wrong guy. That guy down the hall is beloved by the company, runs the biggest business unit and bleeds Etsy.  You should promote him.”  Pretty cool story of something putting the company’s interest above theirs. 
  • Hating Saas: he talked about why he hates investing in Saas companies (1:18 mark) because they get commoditized too easily. 
  • About bitcoin: he talked about how it is the closest thing he’s seen to a replacement for cash money and that’s why he’s investing.  He’s also investing there because he’s burnt out on social. 
  • About SnapChat: It’s not a replacement of instagram, but rather the text message (or WhatApp).  It’s not a photo service but rather a messaging service.  (see my thoughts on Snapchat here)
  • About blogging every day:  He hates how media distorts his message so he’s taken it on himself to create his own media so he can control it. 

All in all, some good stuff.  The full video is here:

My Pebble Watch

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About 10 months ago, I watched this video on Kickstarter and was really intrigued about the thought of having a watch send me updates from my iPhone.

I put some money down in May 2012 and waited.  And waited. And waited.  It just so happens that I wasn’t the only one who wanted this.  The guys at Pebble raised over $10 million for their watch.  They then got started mass producing the watches which proved to be harder than they thought.  That said, last month I finally received my watch – almost 11 months after I backed the project. 
Continue reading “My Pebble Watch” →

A Bet For Self-Driving Cars

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I’m a huge fan of self-driving cars.  Google’s effort to make a car that drives itself is pretty awesome. If you have read about them, read the Wired article here.  Just think of all the time and productivity you would earn if you could have a car drive you everywhere.  For all the minutes you’re in a car, you could now be doing something else.  It’ll be found time.  It’s glorious.

Because of my enthusiasm, I made a bet a few weeks ago here at work.  I’m betting that a self-driving car will be available for me to purchase before 3/1/2023.

Some details:

  • The car has to be on the road and legal to drive somewhere in USA
  • It must cost under $150k

I’m taking the under for $200 against Keith.

[poll id=”3″]

 

Netflix vs. HBO

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What’s the future of tv network or service?  It’s probably a subscription service that:

  1. Has exclusive content
  2. Is available on all the devices you own (TV set, mobile devices, iPad, etc.)
  3. Has a library of great content – both old television shows and movies
  4. Offers on-demand viewing of all it

Who’s leading the effort here? It seems to be HBO and Netflix.  Netflix is great for #2, #3, #4 whereas HBO is great for #1 and #3.  It seems to be a race for HBO to get on more devices and for Netflix to get more exclusive shows. 

 

Diane and I just watched the entire season of House of Cards and loved it.  We plowed through all 13 episodes in two weeks.  That’s how we watch most shows (on-demand) and not in HBO’s weekly format.  It’s only a matter of time before they all go that way. 

For me, I’m putting my money on Netflix.  First off, because it’s not part of Time Warner which seems to be stuck in the ways of the past.  Second, because Netflix has been pretty aggressive on all fronts and their winning here seems more likely than HBO figuring out the web and devices. 

Thoughts?

iPhone5: 3 months in

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I wrote a post about 4 months ago about the iPhone5 and what I thought about it.  This was before i had purchased it or even used it.  

I have now been using my iPhone 5 for over 3 months and really love it. It’s a nice upgrade over the 4. I like the thinner size, the bigger screen, the faster processor, and the super awesome camera.   All things considered, it’s pretty damn sweet.  I even have been using Siri in the car to play music and send quick text messages.

There’s a lot of buzz around Apple maps being terrible and some android phones being better.  For me, Apple maps have been great although i just installed Google Maps and found that to be even better.  I’m sure some Android phones are better or at least come close to the iPhone, but at this point, they are all basically the same.  We’re so far past regular cell phones that are just phones that we’re all winners.  These smartphones are just ridiculous in what they can do.  Quibbling over megapixels, LTE coverage, the number of apps, and features such as turn-by-turn is such a great problem to have. 

Election Thoughts: Twitter and Nate Silver

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The election is over and we can get on with our lives.  For me, living in Colorado meant that our television stations were nothing but ads either telling us that Romney was a bastard or that Obama was incompetent.  I know people who believe those messages and I don’t want to really talk about whether they’re right or wrong. It’s just exhausting.

I loved watching my Twitter feed on election night. I have to say that for live, unpredictable events like disasters, elections, and sports, – twitter really shines.  That said, i was also really impressed with the coverage on television.  The big board on CNN was way more informative with actual stats than any other medium. They knew where things were going down, when they were happening, and why. Twitter was snarky and fun but TV was actually helpful.

The big winner to me for this election was Nate Silver.  If you don’t know Nate, and I didn’t until a little it ago, he’s a guy who first gained recognition for developing a system for forecasting the performance of professional baseball players.  One day he woke up and wanted to the same for politicians.  Last election in 2008, he built FiveThirtyEight.com (538 is the total number of electoral votes out there) and used his crazy smart algorithms to predict, with really cool charts, who would win.  When the final votes came in, he correctly predicted the winner of 49 of the 50 state and all 35 Senate races that year.  Way closer than almost every one else.   Continue reading “Election Thoughts: Twitter and Nate Silver” →

Thoughts on the iPhone 5

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At the Kapost office yesterday, about half the company was glued to live-blogging of the iPhone 5 announcement.  What we saw was only a blog but watching it was quite a show.  A few things stood out for me:

 It’s all about the LTE.  Most people don’t realize what LTE is and what it means.  Forgot the ads you see for 4G right now – those are lies.  What most people are getting as 4G isn’t really 4G. LTE is wireless internet that is 20-50x faster.  Once you get it, you won’t need to upgrade for speed for a long time.  It’s like going from a bike to a motorcycle.  Sure, in the future you can get a faster motorcycle, but the major upgrade has happened.  (more info on LTE here)

The magic of Apple.  Only two companies make money in the mobile phone business: Apple and Samsung.  You could read that as Apple and the people who are best at copying Apple.  Apple make money because they convince us to buy something that we didn’t know we need.  The iPhone 5 is really just the same phone, but they go out of their way to show us how it is both the same and something totally different.  It’s thinner (ooohhh), it’s faster (aaaahhhh) and has more and better bells and whistles than ever before (applause).  I don’t know of any other company that asks and gets an hour of my time for them to explain to my why i should buy their product.

Desktop to Mobile.  The transition from computing being a desktop/laptop world to a mobile world is totally complete.  The graphics on the iPhone 5 now rival console gaming units.  There was a demo of a race car game and the rearview mirror on the car was showing accurate graphics.  At this point, the phone is literally just a smaller computer. Sure, not everyone has a smartphone yet, but they will and it will be a fascinating world when companies start taking advantage of the fact that everyone in the world is carrying out a crapload of computing power in their pocket.

I’m still rocking the iPhone 4 and plan on preordering a new phone at midnight on the 14th.  In fact, everyone I know who has a 4 or older is planning on upgrading to the 5.  Are you?