> We were much too optimistic about the internet economy’s near-term growth in 2022 and 2023 and underestimated both the likelihood and impact of a broader slowdown.
This is one of the most interesting statements ever written. If you ran a 'Idea Fourier' on this signal, so many things fall out: cheap interest rates pushes crazy valuations and estimations, believing the low interest fantasy was a requirement to getting their funding in the first place, now how easy is it to just say 'oops, no take back-sies'
I run revenue planning for a large-ish public SaaS company. We knew all of these factors were a risk this year but they were immediately shot down when brought up or part of models. "Focus on what we can control" "Usage and growth is so high there are no signs of slowdown". Whenever we used data to show that macro factors might be artificially driving up usage and demand it was dismissed. Politics plays a large role here as senior leaders want to take credit for all the growth. What's funny is now when it's all trending down of course macro is the factor and rarely anyone's fault.
And a refreshingly honest statement. Too often these layoffs are put on external factors. Having someone admit the actual mistake is due to human optimism (greed maybe) just +1’d my respect for Stripe.
It's a somewhat humorous misappropriation of a mathematical term being applied conceptually.
Roughly speaking, a Fourier transform takes as input a signal (like audio) and produces a spectrogram (the signal's component frequencies).
So "Idea Fourier" is a roundabout way of saying "take the component ideas from a statement". But really, GP just suggested making inferences or deductions, which has nothing to do with Fourier transforms.
This is one of the most interesting statements ever written. If you ran a 'Idea Fourier' on this signal, so many things fall out: cheap interest rates pushes crazy valuations and estimations, believing the low interest fantasy was a requirement to getting their funding in the first place, now how easy is it to just say 'oops, no take back-sies'
Interesting time to be alive.