Assertion Not checkable as stated
De Masi: US VCs Overinflate Portfolio Holdings Compared to European Peers
“In the US, VCs hold everything at these tremendously optimistic valuations as if everything's liquid and it's all getting sold at the highest comp they've found out there with the one sale in the sector, and every entrepreneur is convinced that they're sitting…”
Prediction Partly held up
De Masi: Tech Unicorns Face Forced Consolidation and Declining Valuations
“When I look at the unicorns today, you know, you're gonna see forced consolidation, you're gonna see continued gas error being let out of valuations here, and people resist it Using clever capital structures, endless consolidation, and hope that they can hold …”
Assertion Partly supported
De Masi: Uber and Airbnb are burning massive cash defending network effects
“Other than Uber and Airbnb, I can't think of you with the same sort of network effects. And you can see how much money it's taking them to defend that. I mean, even the private company info that's leaked there is they're all hosing through cash.”
Prediction Partly held up
De Masi: Mobile gaming will consolidate into fewer companies within three years
“There's going to be huge consolidation in gaming, and I think that there will be, you know, fewer, bigger, better companies in the next two, three years with better profit margins. Ultimately, less global competition in mobile gaming than there is now.”
Prediction Held up
De Masi: Tech unicorns face slow valuation deflation into 'zombie corns'
“I think those days are coming to the end, at least on this cycle. And I think you will see a slow deflation of unicorns becoming zombie corns in a lot of places. A lot of private paper mergers are going to happen.”
Opinion
De Masi: Only EA, Activision, and Take-Two matter in console gaming
“I mean, console, we're down to arguably three companies that matter. EA, Activision, Take Two.”
Assertion Contradicted
De Masi: Only four global markets support a billion-dollar annual game
“Korea, Japan, China, the US, those are the four markets that can support a billion dollar gain in a year.”
Prediction Didn’t hold up
De Masi: $9 mobile devices will match Oculus Rift power in 2-3 cycles
“Over the next two to three Moore's law cycles, you're going to see that Oculus Rift power turning up, I think, in handheld devices that cost nine dollars.”
Assertion Supported
De Masi: Glu Mobile's Celebrity Partner Social Reach Hits 1.3 Billion
“On average, our portfolio of celebrity partners is growing organically month on month. So we aim to sign up a billion. I said it on the analyst day last May. We're at a 1,000,000,003 right now, and that's been organic growth across the portfolio.”
Assertion Partly supported
De Masi: Female celebrities dominate top social media follower rankings
“Women are social media mavens compared to men. There are very few men that break fifty million, let alone a hundred million followers, and you look at the top 20, 30 most popular people in the world, It's like three-quarters female, especially the over a hundr…”
Disclosure
Glu Mobile Celebrity Partners Earn Seven- to Eight-Figure Payouts
“You can find your way into, you know, seven and then, you know, and even eight figure You know, earnings over the life of one of these.”
Assertion Supported
De Masi: Rovio's Shakira celebrity game was a commercial failure
“Rovio built a Shakira game that didn't work.”
Insight
De Masi: Phasing out legacy business lines is more profitable than selling
“And it's usually, if not always, more profitable to run off your own legacy business than it is to try and sell it. Because if you sell it, you're gonna get a discount to what the cash, the free cash flow is you can generate.”
Insight
De Masi: The smartphone market will never be dominated by one model
“The phone market is like the car market. There will not be one model because people have different aesthetic, and they have different utility needs and there's different price points.”
Assertion Partly supported
De Masi: Glu acquired PlayFirst for $50M in stock now worth $10M
“PlayFirst is a great example of a business that I think raised 35, forty million dollars of venture money. We paid fifty million dollars a couple years ago in stock that was priced at six dollars a share, so today we're talking ten million dollars of glue Equi…”
Insight
De Masi: Venture Capital Cannot Survive Without Power-Law Outlier Winners
“If you study the way venture portfolios are built, they would not be in business if they didn't have the one Uber winner. Without the Googles and Facebooks, they would not be in business at all.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
De Masi: Well-capitalized startups will see unparalleled deal terms in 2016-2018
“I think this is a good moment for backing your better capitalized portfolio companies to act as a consolidator, encouraging them to be on the offensive, so to speak, because I think you're going to get unparalleled deals in the next year or two.”
Insight
De Masi: Startups prioritizing revenue in downturns build enduring businesses
“If you're raising money in oh eight or nine, you know, the firms that focused on proving they have a revenue model that is real usually end up to be great businesses five years down the line because they forced the discipline themselves to think about revenue …”
Insight
De Masi: Free services rarely develop pricing power over consumers later
“If you condition consumers for something to be free, you don't usually get pricing power.”
Disclosure
Glu Mobile operates without a dedicated corporate development team
“We don't have a corporate development team. Which means we're not trying to do deals.”
Prediction Held up
De Masi: PC gaming VR will achieve real revenue generation by 2017
“I think there will be hardcore PC gamers that take to VR in the next two years, and they'll start to be actual money made there in 2017.”
Prediction Didn’t hold up
De Masi: Mobile VR/AR will scale to 100M+ devices in 2-3 cycles
“I think the most exciting intersection is going to be two or three more loss cycles away when VR and AR using your phone as the primary device Will be an option for the mass market. It won't be a million of these or even ten million sold. It'll be a hundred mi…”
Disclosure
De Masi: Glu Mobile's James Bond game missed target audience expectations
“We built a James Bond game last year that, you know, whilst it was done over two years in close collaboration with the broccoli, you know, Wilson you know, family, it didn't hit the bullseye in terms of what the core demographic wants.”
Disclosure
De Masi: Kim Kardashian communicates weekly and meets quarterly with Glu CEO
“Honestly, she and I exchange numerous emails a week. There's phone calls every few weeks, and we meet up in person, you know, probably at least quarterly.”
