17 Aug 2015

Bezos: Call Me

Were it I was head of media relations at amazon.com when the New York Times revealed some less than civilized employment practices there.

Finally a media relations challenge that, in my view, will fill the pages of communications and crisis management text books for generations to come.

Unknown at this point: Will these case studies portray Amazon’s response as exactly what companies should do in crisis or exactly what they shouldn’t do?

Taking the temperature of this situation at this moment in time, I’d say Amazon has stumbled out of the gate. read more

4 Aug 2015

What does Jack Dorsey see?

At this point, I’m not sure.

Not to say that Mr. Dorsey will not earn his place in the pantheon of Silicon Valley legends.  He will.

What I’m less sure about is his understanding of the capital markets.   So after taking Twitter public, is he going to take mobile payments company Square, public too?

My read of Twitter’s income statement and balance sheet indicates they have not used the proceeds from their $1.8 billion IPO efficiently (or even completely).  Research and development expenses went from $594 mm in 2013 to $691 mm in 2014.  Marketing expenses went from $316 mm to $614 mm.   Even though Twitter posted a $577 mm loss in 2014, on a cash basis, its operating activities threw off $81 mm in cash. read more