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It's always easy to overvalue products/services that are based on number of users than on actual improvements in a narrow but highly technical field with a super-high barrier of entry.

The number of active users is one of the most enticing metric a VC firm can lay its eyes on.

Edit: For context, the parent comment is talking about Salesforces' acquisition of Slack [0]

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2020/12/01/salesforce-buys-slack

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Boston dynamics might indeed advance the state of the art but not be able to capture the value ther advancements bring. Also, how big is their competitive moat? Does, say Uber care if their deliveries are done via Boston Dynamics robots or via some competitor? What if in 10 years some research group makes a new company that can deliver the same dancing robots that Boston Dynamics can?

The concept of how moats work in the context of a social app vs how to monetize it is well understood.

Also I'm not saying that the price of Slack was fair. It's entirely possible that the purchase will be a regretful one for salesforce, similar to the regrets that Tumblr's buyer must have felt.

Alright then. That's a lot.

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