Tag: The Razor’s Edge

We’re going to share episodes of our original podcasts here, both as examples of how we podcast and in case the content itself catches your ear. Here’s our latest episode of The Razor’s Edge.

We’re joined by friend of The Razor’s Edge and professional investor Captain Twilio, as he’s known. As someone who has only owned two stocks in his portfolio since 2012 – Netflix from 2012-2017 and Twilio in the three years since – he has a laser focused approach to growth investing, and it’s worked.

In the wake of Netflix’s most recent, pandemic-fueled earnings report, we brought him on to see where he thinks the company sits, and what we all make of the report and Netflix’s positioning. We also cover Captain’s Twilio position at length, though that will be part two of this episode, coming out around Twilio’s earnings. 

Topics Covered  

• 3:30 – Background on the Captain’s positioning  
• 7:30 – Understanding the old Netflix long case and the growth investor mindset 
• 12:30 – Why swap out? 
• 14:30 – Attention span issue and the new threat of Tiktok 
• 21:00 – The competitive landscape 
• 27:00 – The old distribution vs. content question 
• 30:00 – The streaming wars and what attrition looks like 
• 34:30 – The most recent earnings call, and what lands are left for Netflix to conquer? 
• 43:00 – Peak Hollywood and our changing viewing habits 

Relevant Links:

• Akram’s Razor – Netflix: This Stock’s Story Is Over
• Vox – Land of the Giants Podcast Season 2

We’re going to share episodes of our original podcasts here, both as examples of how we podcast and in case the content itself catches your ear. First up: our newest episode of The Razor’s Edge.

Subscribe to The Razor’s Edge on:

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Stitcher
• Podbean

We’ve gone to some length covering Slack, Zoom, and other software companies, as the 2020 work from home environment has accelerated and amplified business’s rush to the cloud. But what about email, that old standby? Where does it fit in?

We got the chance to speak with Rahul Vohra, someone whose career has been built on optimizing email. He founded Rapportive, a Gmail plug-in, before selling that to LinkedIn for what was reported to be $15M. He is now the founder and CEO of Superhuman, a service that also builds on gmail and is dedicated to providing the fastest email experience ever. He filled us in on what Superhuman is seeing in the 2020 market, whether a $360/year product is consigned to a niche, what the entrant of a new competitor – Hey, from Basecamp – portends, and how gamification goes right or wrong. He also shared his thoughts on the recent Apple app store arguments that Hey prompted, and what his favorite video games were growing up.  

Topics Covered:

• 2:30 minute mark – The role of email in the modern collaboration landscape: Is Email dead?
• 7:30 – Initial impact of asynchronicity, work from home, COVID
• 10:30 – Superhuman user experience
• 16:30 – The onboarding process, that Verge review, and unit economics
• 23:30 – The niche question
• 29:30 – Competition, Hey’s entrance into the market
• 42:30 – The Communications bundling/unbundling
• 46:30 – Demographic questions
• 52:30 – Among the giants
• 54:30 – App Store controversy
• 57:30 – Gamification
• 1:02:30 – Public SaaS valuations and what is possible for start-ups

Sources worth checking out in context of this conversation:

• Walt Mossberg: Yes, You’ve Still Got Mail
• The Smart but Scattered Guide to Success: How to Use Your Brain’s Executive Skills to Keep Up, Stay Calm, and Get Organized at Work and at Home (Book)
• Verge: Superhuman’s email app is overhyped and overpriced
• Churn FM: How Superhuman avoids churn by systematically increasing product-market fit (Podcast)
• First Round: How Superhuman Built An Engine To Find Product/Market Fit
• TheInformation: The Tech Entrepreneur Who Loves To Troll Silicon Valley