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Vegas64

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Everything posted by Vegas64

  1. Can we start crap-posting about how the #10 NOLA seed is going to beat the #1 PHX seed tonight or is it too early to dream and hope?
  2. That's a big problem. Get to a rheumatologist post-haste. I'm not a doctor, but GCP's are worthless with auto-immune generally speaking.
  3. Steroids knock down inflammation, so your inflammation markers will be lower. Not sure about the RA factor, but if you have something that is multi-system (e.g. joints/swollen arthritis) but is not actually RA or PA, then it will be harder to nail down. Do you have a good rheumatologist you are going to or is this all your GCP?
  4. Look at UT-Austin as an example as well-- most of us went when the school was an average, cheap, in-state option with average to above average admission barriers. Now 90% of us on this site would be kindly asked to get off the lawn.
  5. Bad move to take steroids before doing the bloodwork, IMO. I have had a bout with this stuff and I don't have the time to write out a novel now, but the long and short of lessons learned is always do blood work and testing before starting treatment because you can mask or make diagnosis longer and harder when treating symptoms to lead to a clinical impression.
  6. When I think of Northeastern I think "meh", and probably because I'm older and remember it before it paid to transform itself.
  7. An interesting (take it with a grain of salt) blind poll. I don't know if you guys are familiar with Blind (I use it for my company to get the scoop on layoffs and rumors, etc.) from NYT: Many Twitter employees feel personally invested in the company’s effort to encourage healthy conversation — even if they do not directly work on content moderation — and have pressed executives to crack down further on hate speech and misinformation, six employees said. They see Mr. Musk’s proposal to revert to Twitter’s early, lax approach as a rebuke of their work. But other employees have argued in internal messages seen by The Times that their co-workers have shifted too far to the left side of the political spectrum, making employees who support Mr. Musk’s plans too uncomfortable to speak up. In a worker-run survey of nearly 200 Twitter employees on Blind, an anonymous workplace review app, 44 percent said they were neutral on Mr. Musk. Twenty-seven percent said they loved Mr. Musk, while 27 percent said they hated him.
  8. A couple of pages back folks were talking about how 7500 employees for twitter felt bloated, especially since they are not A-list talent either (FAANG). Looks like cuts will come if you read the tea leaves on the financials of this upside-down-topsy-turvy-kinda-LBO. From NYT: So to summarize: $13.5 billion of Musk’s offer is a loan to Twitter; the aforementioned 4.51% interest rate would mean $609 billion in annual interest payments, which, you will note, was just covered by last years free cash flow of $630 billion. That leaves $33.5 billion of Musk’s offer as cash for equity. $12.5 billion of that cash is a margin loan against Musk’s Tesla stock; $21 billion is out-of-pocket…somehow. The first thing to note is that Musk is taking on enormous risk, and doing so in a way that actually limits his potential return. Remember, most LBO’s entail putting up around 10% of the purchase price, not 72%; the benefit of that approach is not simply less downside risk, but also more leverage to generate a higher return. This certainly lends credence to Musk’s insistence that this acquisition isn’t about the economics. That noted, I suspect that margin loan in particular is something Musk would like to get rid of as soon as possible. The best way to do that is to bump up Twitter’s cash flow and refinance that $12.5 billion, and the easiest way to increase cash flow is to make big cuts to Twitter’s workforce. Here are some rough calculations on what that might look like: Twitter, as of the end of 2021, had 7,500 full-time employees. That, to be perfectly honest, is a lot, particularly given the anemic nature of Twitter’s business: the average Twitter employee generates $677k in revenue (for reference, each of the 35,587 Facebook employees generates $3.3 million in revenue). Twitter spends just over $3 billion on Research & Development, Sales & Marketing, and General & Administrative; for the sake of argument let’s assume that those costs are Twitter’s employee costs, which means each employee costs Twitter around $401k/year (this obviously isn’t correct, but it’s close enough for this exercise). $12.5 billion more in debt (to refinance the margin loan) would require $564 million more a year in free cash flow (at an interest rate of 4.51%); that is about 1,400 employees at $401,000/employee.
  9. I know we all hate him, but Stephen A Smith made some great points about Ben Simmons-- mostly about how we can all foresee a "Ben Simmons Rule" for pay-for-play in the next collective bargaining agreement because of this clear abuse and how he is screwing his peers. And it's funny how many times he says the word pathetic:
  10. Elon Musk the businessman seemed to do some smart things here. Also when you are the world's richest man, your tools and levers you can pull are plenty, to allow you to put a board of directors in a full nelson and tap out: "Twitter may want to finalize a takeover deal with Elon Musk ahead of the company’s first-quarter earnings report on Thursday, according to analysts…“Locking a deal up today or tomorrow may sound pretty appealing for someone who knows they are in possession of bad news,” Gordon Haskett said in a Monday note…Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told CNBC on Monday that advertising models are slowing and subscriber growth has continued to pose a challenge. A difficult macro environment could weigh on results, KeyBanc said in an April 14 note. The company has banned advertising in Ukraine and Russia due to the war, and any softness in Europe ad spending could also hurt second-quarter projections, according to a note earlier this month from MKM Partners. We’ll see what happens on Thursday, but you can certainly see how difficult it might be for the board to turn down Musk’s offer — which would already kill the stock, given it would not only end the Musk premium but also include his vote of no confidence in management — because they claim their plan is better, particularly if there were fresh evidence to the contrary."
  11. Exactly this. He bought it, he can do with it what he wants. That's the whole premise of "free market capitalism" and "if you don't like it, feel free to start your own (or buy it)" as a retort to criticism. I am very curious to see what changes and where Elon can take Twitter. I wonder if he has some transformational ideas that are half or semi-baked that he's ready to implement that he's been sitting on if this has all been one manic, impulsive purchase.
  12. Here is an interesting stab at what Elon Twitter might look like. He's mentioned transparency in source code, algo's, etc. https://builtformars.com/case-studies/elons-twitter I don't think anyone really knows fully what this is all about, to your point, but one thing I'm pretty sure of is Twitter can't do any worse (Q1 earning pending) as a business tasked to return shareholder value and grow and operate as an ongoing concern, then they have been given their mindshare in the attention based economy. Elon will unlock business value.
  13. It's not a temper tantrum. You can admit you were wrong.
  14. This is great. I guess the Q1 earnings report had to be pretty bad as others have said and when the world's richest man is the suitor a deal like this can move faster than it ever has and so, here we are. No pump and dump, but just a modern day Howard Hughes eccentric who is in love with a toy.
  15. Eccentric billionaire with a pest personality is divisive; more news at 9!
  16. This song is worse (and a one hit wonder, so fits the thread as well):
  17. I agree that PHX will probably blow them out and finish it off, but one can dream. And I'm loving the outpouring of hate for PHX and Paul that comes out when they lose, my only regret is it is short-lived, I fear.
  18. Bret Taylor needs to be focused on his own Q1 versus Elon's takeover of Twitter, CRM stock has tanked recently too. Oops, wrong thread.
  19. What do we know? Though I never thought it was realistically a pump-and-dump as some did; way too much visibility and too big a scheme. From NYT: What seemed highly improbable a week and a half ago is now looking a lot more real: Twitter is in advanced talks to sell itself to Elon Musk. The company’s 11-member board was negotiating with Musk into the early hours of the morning over his offer to buy the social networking service and take it private, DealBook’s Lauren Hirsch and The Times’s Mike Isaac report. The two sides have been discussing details, including a timeline to close any potential deal and any fees that would be paid if an agreement were signed and then fell apart, according to two people with knowledge of the situation. The negotiations followed a board meeting yesterday morning to discuss the offer. No deal is certain, and it remains entirely possible that the talks will break down. It is rare for a board to try to hammer through a deal as quickly as this.
  20. To broadly make the blanket statement that someone on the spectrum can’t run a social media organization in the first place is pretty brazenly ableist.
  21. I came here to question this, glad you commented. I was reading a bunch of “album of the year” reviews and find it to be just meh. Just like I thought Daytona was meh. Maybe I just find Pusha-T’s whole Schlick to be one note and boring these days, but even the Neptune/Kanye production was much ballyhooed and left me thinking it was good, not great, overhyped. My personal opinion is I think Push can’t just carry an album because he’s not interesting enough, but he’s an amazing guest feature artist. To that point my favorite track was with his brother.
  22. If it’s any consolation I want the Suns to finish NOLA off quickly with the 4-1 gentleman’s sweep now (in order to get to a better opponent and ensuring Booker won’t be available).
  23. Oh i guess I see where and at what angle you are coming from. Sorry. I want Booker’s injury to last throughout the playoffs so his team is weaker and easier to beat now that the injury happened. Not sorry. Just like the Jazz fans are praying every night to Joseph Smith’s underwear Luka’s calf won’t heal.
  24. We don’t know the extent or how long an injury like this will really have an impact is what I’m saying— if you aren’t a Suns fan, or a Booker fan (or both, like me) you want that impact to be throughout the playoffs.
  25. Really? If (and big if because it’s a complete unknown) Luka is healthy you think Suns in 7? That’s interesting. I could see it potentially, but the one thing for sure is that if Booker is healthy the Suns play GSW in WCF.
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