Thread by @jason_kint

After listening to Facebook’s earnings a second time because a $270B drop in valuation deserves it, a few things stood out to me. First, the CFO, who I’ve been saying for 18 months needs to be clearer about their kneecapping, said the word “headwinds” 25 times so it’s a start. /1

Second, I’m seeing too much focus on flat/drop of Daily Active Users. Yes, that’s new but it’s their loss in ability to microtarget users as they’re opting out of tracking (iOS) plus CA and EU privacy laws are catching up to them that kneecaps their surveillance biz model. /2

Let’s listen in to their earnings a bit here. Here is the CFO during Q&A talking through some of the “headwinds” related to iOS and he also sort of mentions they may not be able to transfer data across the Atlantic any more (Schrems II). /3

This wasn’t just an on the fly answer that sounded bad. Here is how the CFO described the outlook in his prepared remarks upfront related to these same “headwinds.” /4

Then CFO describes “headwinds” in 22q1 as unique because they’re lapping q1 and q2 where they didn’t have the headwinds in place making for a tough comp in the first half of the year. This makes zero sense. Then he throws out an even $10B impact from iOS tracking prevention. /5

Of course an analyst asked how he came up with the $10B number? Zero confidence in answer. Listen, Facebook isn’t reporting its opt-out rate on its most valuable platform (iOS) but it must be 70%+. That’s a massive kneecap on their core surveillance advertising biz model. /6

Sheryl Sandberg comes in to try to clean up describing how they’re going to mitigate the effects of tracking prevention on their core surveillance advertising business model. Listen to this work of art answer. It’s just too much. /7

By the way, I wouldn’t miss that Facebook is also losing “friends” as he stumbles through a wicked and misleading (tracking prevention affects browsers, too) swipe at Google and Apple with an awkward🍎 pun in the middle of it. /8