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by jmull 987 days ago
I don't think you can really draw conclusions from an interim pick like this one.

It's who they choose after the search that will tell you something.

But things don't look good no matter who they choose. Unity has to become sustainable... that, or go out of business. Their fundamental problem is somehow getting revenue and costs in line with each other.

Here are some general ways that could be done...

* Squeeze a lot more money out of existing customers * Get a lot more paying customers * Cut spending on things that impact revenue a lot less than the cut saves

The first one is what the last CEO tried with that cockamamie licensing scheme. You could go at it in other ways but in the end the impact on customers is the same so I don't think the reaction would be a lot better.

Is there any clear way to accomplish the second, at least without an even larger negative impact on revenue?

For investors, cutting cost is the least desirable -- they want to grow, not shrink. And customers also don't like to get less for the same price. But perhaps there is a way to cut costs that would spare what provides the core value to customers, and perhaps a business guy could get shareholders to accept that it is the only way.

2 comments

I concur with this, their interim CEO is the person who can do the needful things with respect to cutting executive pay, laying off people, and outright firing others. Once the organization has been pruned, the "real" new CEO comes on board and is given a shot at rebirth with a new point of view.
I don't understand how their cash burn rate is so high that a billion in revenue isn't enough to stay in the black. What are they spending so much money on?
They've been on a hiring spree, with a ~50% annual growth rate for the past several years [1].

[1] https://stockanalysis.com/stocks/u/employees/

Marketing and sales costs have increased tremendously