What went wrong with Snap, Netflix and Uber?
Despite superficial differences, digital darlings’ business models rest on the same shaky pillars
When evan spiegel, boss of Snap, wrote in a leaked memo that the social-media firm had been “punched in the face hard by 2022’s new economic reality”, he might as well have been describing America’s digital darlings as a whole. After a multi-year bull run, the sector is suffering a sharp correction. The NASDAQ index, home to many consumer-internet companies, has fallen by over 30% in the past 12 months; the Dow Jones Industrial Average, made up of less techie firms, is down by around 10%. Crunchbase, a data provider, estimates that American tech has already shed more than 45,000 jobs this year.
This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline “Bad tech”
Business November 5th 2022
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