Slack is Now Worth More Than $20 Billion

[DEAD7]

Slack is Now Worth More Than $20 Billion

Slack, the workplace communication tool popular in tech and media circles, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, making it the latest tech unicorn to race to Wall Street this year. But Slack took a more unconventional approach to going public. The company chose to list its existing shares directly on the stock exchange rather than raising money by issuing new shares to be sold to public investors. Slack opened at $38.50 a share on Thursday, a more than 50% increase from its $26 reference price -- not to be confused with an IPO price -- set on the eve of its market debut. At that price, Slack has a market value of roughly $23 billion.

 

[OfTheCross]

Slack is Now Worth More Than $20 Billion

Slack, the workplace communication tool popular in tech and media circles, began trading on the New York Stock Exchange on Thursday, making it the latest tech unicorn to race to Wall Street this year. But Slack took a more unconventional approach to going public. The company chose to list its existing shares directly on the stock exchange rather than raising money by issuing new shares to be sold to public investors. Slack opened at $38.50 a share on Thursday, a more than 50% increase from its $26 reference price -- not to be confused with an IPO price -- set on the eve of its market debut. At that price, Slack has a market value of roughly $23 billion.

I kept seeing ads for them recently online...still don't know what it is really. Haven't bothered to check their website

 

[JLova]

That's what we use.

 

[Geek Nasty]

Just a chat program. No reason at all to be valued that high.

 

[killacal]

Just a chat program. No reason at all to be valued that high.

Value is value

 

[Pressure]

I wonder what this means for csico, goto meeting and the other companies in that space.

 

[NZA]

i have access to an account, used it a bit, dont know what the fuss is about

 

[Wargames]

Just a chat program. No reason at all to be valued that high.

Is it superior to discord?

 

[Geek Nasty]

Is it superior to discord?

Dont know its better than hipchat but only a little. My point is nothing that easy to recreate with nothing of intrinsic value like an ad profile customer base should be that expensive.

 

[Dr. Acula]

It's crazy it took so long for these chat apps to come out. For the longest time if you want to have a group chat for teamwork and collaboration (not just chatting), IRC which has a significant learning curve and been around since the 80s, I think, was the go-to system. I guess because it was easy to host a server and most apps were open source is what maintained it's popularity. But now discord and slack have taken the mantel though I know that some folks still avoid it for it's centralized and monitored nature.

Just think that is interesting it took these apps so long to catch up

Edit: im mostly referring to use in more hobby settings instead of businesses. I saw go-to meeting and stuff mentioned which in the case of businesses is obviously the more popular choice.

 

[Geek Nasty]

It's crazy it took so long for these chat apps to come out. For the longest time if you want to have a group chat for teamwork and collaboration (not just chatting), IRC which has a significant learning curve and been around since the 80s, I think, was the go-to system. I guess because it was easy to host a server and most apps were open source is what maintained it's popularity. But now discord and slack have taken the mantel though I know that some folks still avoid it for it's centralized and monitored nature.

Just think that is interesting it took these apps so long to catch up

Edit: im mostly referring to use in more hobby settings instead of businesses. I saw go-to meeting and stuff mentioned which in the context of my post was a more popular choice.

Not really new, I just can't tell what took so long for them to take off. Honestly, chat apps and old school forums like usenet have been around at least 30 years. I don't know what woke companies up to stop using email for internal communications. Maybe they finally got tired of email exploits.

This is why I was so shocked by that $20 billion number. I bet you could build the entire Slack feature set in 10-20 man years.