Twitter Inc executives certainly don’t have the respect of venture capitalist Peter Thiel. Without batting an eye this morning, he told CNBC that the micro-blogging company is “horribly mismanaged ” and that there’s “probably a lot of pot smoking going on there.”
See the video for yourself below
Twitter may still work
CNBC anchors noted that Thiel is long on Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) and then asked him about Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR). He answered that Twitter is difficult to evaluate and that the company has “a lot of potential.” He also inferred that the company’s executives must smoke a lot of pot because of how badly managed it is.
Nonetheless, he doesn’t think Twitter is totally lost, even with all that pot smoking he think is going on there: “It’s such a solid franchise that maybe it works even with all that.”
Twitter CEO is good enough
The venture capitalist also said he doesn’t think Twitter would be able to do much better than current CEO Dick Costolo. He said the only way to change things in companies like Twitter is to “fire everybody and start over.” According to Thiel, the company culture created by the founders is just too difficult to change. He doesn’t currently have a position in Twitter.
He also said that management could get a B+ grade and that some workers may come in at 10:30 but leave at 5 p.m. He believes that Twitter is “vastly underperforming its potential.”
Thiel also bashes Apple, pushes Google
When asked about Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOGL) (NASDAQ:GOOG), he said he prefers Google over Apple. That’s even though regulators in Europe have expressed antitrust concerns about Google.
The European Commission wants Google to adjust its settlement in connection with demands for changes to its search algorithm. The investor notes that the antitrust issues are the big risk with Google
With Apple though, he thinks the big risk is that the company might lose its pricing power in smartphones. He’s skeptical that Apple Pay and the Apple Watch will make much of a difference on the company’s bottom line, noting that the iPad “wasn’t even enough to move the dial” on Apple’s revenues because it rakes in $150 billion from smartphones.
He suggests Apple might “reinvent” TVs, which he thinks would be more profitable for the company.
