How much is Donald Trump's social media company, Truth Social, really worth? It's never made money, so you can't judge it that way. But lots of startup companies are unprofitable in their early years, and venture capitalists figure out values for them anyway.

The most common alternative is to look at net sales. Generally speaking, a startup with slow growth might be valued at about 3x revenue while a startup with faster growth would be around 7x or so. A skyrocketing startup might command 15x.

Truth Social only has three years of results with inconsistent growth. In 2022 growth was negative and in 2023 it grew 200%. Investors are hoping that Trump will win the presidency and growth will continue at a high rate. Based on that, you might aggressively but plausibly value Truth Social at 15x revenue, or around $70 million. If you're a real true believer you might push that as high as $100 million. That's kind of crazy, but social media is a crazy kind of space.

Now, pay attention to some arithmetic. Today Truth Social will merge with a vehicle called DWAC, which currently has $300 million in cash and nothing else. So it's worth $300 million. Truth Social is worth (at a stretch) $100 million.

After the merger DWAC will have 188 million shares of stock outstanding. This means the cash is worth $1.60 per share and Truth Social is worth about $0.53 per share, for a total share value of $2.13. And yet the stock is currently trading at nearly $50 per share:

Question: Since the value of the cash is $1.60 per share no matter what, this means that Truth Social is being effectively valued at $49.95 - $1.60 = $48.35 per share. This is nearly 100 times its maximum plausible value. Why?

Once you figure that out, you know who's being scammed in this deal. The answer is: anyone who buys stock in DWAC.

UPDATE: After DWAC stock began trading on Tuesday morning under the DJT ticker symbol, the price soared above $70. In other words, Truth Social is now trading at an implicit value of 131 times its maximum plausible value.

(Wait for it, wait for it…) One guy, singing Bon Jovi’s Livin’ On A Prayer, gets an entire park to sing along with him. I know this was a tough week for many, but if this doesn’t brighten your day, I do not know what will.

See also Leadership Lessons from the Dancing Guy, which I swear is related. (via open culture)

Dropbox:

Today, we’re unveiling the new Dropbox. It’s the Dropbox you know and love, but better. It’s a single workspace to organize your content, connect your tools, and bring everyone together, wherever you are. The first thing you’ll notice is an all-new Dropbox desktop app that we’re introducing today through our early access program. It’s more than an app, though — it’s a completely new experience.

I don’t want any of this. All I want from Dropbox is a folder that syncs perfectly across my devices and allows sharing with friends and colleagues. That’s it: a folder that syncs with sharing. And that’s what Dropbox was.

Now it’s a monstrosity that embeds its own incredibly resource-heavy web browser engine. In a sense Steve Jobs was right — the old Dropbox was a feature not a product. But it was a feature well-worth paying for, and which made millions of people very happy.

If iCloud Drive folder sharing works as well as promised when it ships this fall, I’ll probably ditch Dropbox completely. There’s simply no clarity to this new Dropbox. I don’t even understand much of what Dropbox is saying it can do. I think they’re trying to be Slack or something? I already have Slack. All I want is a folder that syncs, with sharing.

See Also: Michael Tsai’s roundup of links.

The Economist, writing from the point of view of Larry Page:

Your interpretation is wrong. Your memo was a great example of what’s called “motivated reasoning” — seeking out only the information that supports what you already believe. It was derogatory to women in our industry and elsewhere. Despite your stated support for diversity and fairness, it demonstrated profound prejudice. Your chain of reasoning had so many missing links that it hardly mattered what your argument was based on. We try to hire people who are willing to follow where the facts lead, whatever their preconceptions. In your case we clearly made a mistake.

Really strong piece that crystallizes my thoughts on this matter.

Sune Engel Rasmussen and Pádraig Collins, reporting for The Guardian:

The daughter of Pakistan’s prime minister has become subject of ridicule in her home country after forensic experts cast doubts on documents central to her defence against corruption allegations. […]

Documents claiming that Mariam Nawaz Sharif was only a trustee of the companies that bought the London flats, are dated February 2006, and appear to be typed in Microsoft Calibri.

But the font was only made commercially available in 2007, leading to suspicions that the documents are forged.

The website Dawn reached out to Calibri designer Lucas de Groot for comment:

In a separate email, de Groot, the font designer himself, said that while in theory it would have been possible to create a document using Calibri in 2006, the font would have to be obtained from a beta operating system, “from the hands of computer nerds”.

“Why would anyone use a completely unknown font for an official document in 2006?” he went on to question.

A duo called Palette-Swap Ninja has produced a mashup of Star Wars and the entirety of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album. Each song on the album is paired chronologically with a scene from the movie:

Princess Leia’s Stolen Death Star Plans (Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band)
Luke Is In The Desert (Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds)
Being From The Spaceport Of Mos Eisley (Being For The Benefit Of Mr Kite!)

The effort here is amazing, particularly when this whole thing is going to get yanked at some point soon — it’s a race between Disney and Sony for quickest takedown notice. The whole video playlist is here and you can download the full album on their website or stream it on Soundcloud. (thx, tim)