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Comment by fraserharris

9 years ago

Twitter finances (TTM):

revenue: $2.52B gross profit: $1.49B

It's only losing money because of stock grants.

16 comments

fraserharris

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maccard  9 years ago

> It's only losing money because of stock grants.

That's like saying "We're only losing money because we have to pay our staff"

  • acdha  9 years ago

    They do pay their staff. Unfortunately the stock compensation was based on the … highly optimistic … story they told around the IPO about growing to be as large as Google or Facebook. Why spend prudently when you're about to be stupid-rich?

    • danudey  9 years ago

      I can't count the number of companies I've seen die or collapse because of this mentality.

JoachimSchipper  9 years ago

Okay, but don't these stock grants substitute for salary? It's not like Twitter could just stop granting stock with no ill effects.

  • rco8786  9 years ago

    They pay pretty competitive salaries as well. The stock grants will eventually roll off as people's plans vest and are replaced with smaller ones(new employees have been getting smaller ones for a while already)

nickbauman  9 years ago

Which is a lesson in how VC can easily destroy a viable, profitable business with a "money-chasing-money" strategy.