Thread by @QuinnyPig

And now, as promised in return for donations to benefit racial justice, I will livetweet the @SlackHQ earnings call in this thread.

We're listening to upbeat classical music. Suprisingly upbeat, given that @SlackHQ shares are down 17% after the release of their earnings.

This quarter last year saw 49% growth. This year's quarter saw almost the same growth.

They lost $76.2 million on revenue of $201.7 million before non GAAP shenanigans.

In related news people paid over $200 million in three months for "IRC as a service." Perhaps this isn't the ridiculously bad idea Slashdot predicted it would be?

I think the market may be missing something key. @SlackHQ *really* torqued me off with their horrible UX changes, to the point where I looked into migrating off.

It was a non-starter without SERIOUS work that I'm not going to do. It's not just revenue; it's sticky revenue.

In a pleasant surprise, @SlackHQ declined to provide DAU numbers, which is great because they're lies.

I have something like 40 Slack workspaces across my devices. I am not 40 users to most thinking people.

The market is, when it comes to @SlackHQ, basically comprised of idiots. "WHAT WILL SLACK DO TOMORROW" is the wrong focus.

Its business in five years is way more interesting.

And now the call starts. @slackhq's VP of Investor Relations starts the call off. Founder and CEO @stewart will be on the call, as will their CFO.

"Here's why our non-GAAP numbers are so important." Yeah, because they're just better numbers. That's the point of GAAP!

@stewart begins by reading a statement about COVID19 and systemic racism.

Now talking about how this past quarter was @slackhq's best ever.

Their stock is currently only down 15.5% in after hours.

The phrase "a very volatile macroeconomic backdrop" tells me that some management consultant got to @stewart's prepared remarks.

"Average time per day on Slack for active users increased from 90 minutes to day to 120 minutes per day."

Yeah, except that doesn't (directly) get @slackhq another dime. It does cost them more in cost to service those users, though...

"Slack isn't a remote work tool. It's instead used as a productivity multiplier, no matter where work happens" is @stewart masterfully threading the needle of "@slackhq doesn't hire remote" and "we need to present as remote friendly."

"I will now list off some @SlackHQ customers who have paid us enough that it would be rude for me not to name them." --@stewart, appropriately translated.

Okay, this is novel. They're announcing a partnership with Amazon, and a strategic partnership with @awscloud for things like Chatbot.

"Finally, I'm pleased to announce that @AWScloud is @slackhq's preferred cloud provider."

Why is that an announcement?

Inside Cloud baseball: every time you see "preferred provider" or "all in" or similar terms about ANY vendor, there's a marketing deal in place.

Now @stewart is boasting about a private @SlackHQ channel of SaaS company CEOs that he's in.

It's not a humblebrag, it's just a brag.

Welp, Amazon is moving to @slackHQ.

@SlackHQ video will be powered by Amazon Chime.

https://twitter.com/jordannovet/status/1268652490955853826?s=21

I was going to crap on Chime, but there's no possible way I can top this:

Tsk tsk, @jordannovet. Biba and later Do were acquired to build Chime; not exactly "home grown."

I thought Matt Garman was just my AWS Nemesis,* not internal product teams' too.

* He was the only person at reInvent to decline my request for a selfie.

The webcast is cutting in and out. The Amazon Chime joke is way, way too easy here.

What's curious here is it feels like @SlackHQ is now trying to go after Zoom in some ways. I don't see those as "either or."

Likelier that they're aimed at Microsoft Teams.

...yeah, it would pretty much have to be.

Think about it.

If you and I want to chat, I'll send you a Zoom link. I won't send you a signup form for my corporate Slack team.

Teams is the threat here.

There are some great quotes in @jordannovet's article.

"Some teams within Amazon had already used Slack, but this deal will bring it to all employees"

I've heard whispers of secret against-policy Slack workspaces from @awscloud sources for a while for a while now.

A few minutes ago @stewart referenced "AWS Sandstone." Let me save you some time: there is no such service.

The context was "existing @SlackHQ / @awscloud integrations" so I think we just found a secret AWS codename!

They're clearly way better than the shipping names.

Now @stewart is talking about how helpful @awscloud service notifications to engineers inside of @slackhq are.

NO THEY FREAKING ARE NOT.

Okay, THIS would be a better outcome for everyone. "Click button, get integration" vs "Lambda and SNS and Cloudwatch Logs and CloudWatch Events and..."

https://twitter.com/jmagnuss/status/1268660062840553472

Multi-Org is coming to @SlackHQ shared channels. That will be interesting. No details yet.

"Ah, so you're going to integrate with @MicrosoftTeams then?" sneered the Microsoft fanatic.

"What part of 'best-of-breed' do I need to explain to you?" retorted Matt Garman.

The Q&A continues, with the analysts who have themselves demonstrated an inability to beat the market asking @stewart to predict the future.

Y'know. Typical earnings call nonsense.

"We need to be a thought leader" says @slackHQ CFO Allen Shim.

Flag on the play. He owes $100 to a charity of his choice for using that ridiculous phrase unironically.

Last question is about converting free @SlackHQ users to paid.

Man, is this one close to my heart. Remember how I said I'm in 40 Slack workspaces? Most are free. I would pay as an individual user across the board. For one of them I'd pay hundreds a month to take it free.

My options are instead "pay $50K a year" or "settle for free." There's a pricing umbrella they've left here.

The lesson I'm taking is "don't build a community on top of @SlackHQ" which *IS THEIR STATED POSITION*, but uh... how do you think Slack got where it is?

And this concludes the earnings call.

I'm still hung up on the whole "@awscloud Chime powers @SlackHQ calls" thing.

I'm no @jordannovet; we've already seen that Matt Garman won't talk to me, so I'm out of luck there.

But I'm resourceful!

lastweekinaws.com/podcast/scream…