Morning Glory < 30 Seconds
December 1, 2020
Daily Deal—This Salesforce buying Slack deal has disaster written all over it, paying 20x 2022 projected earnings, integrating two totally different cultures, not to mention two different coding methodologies.
But who is going to bet against Marc Benioff, who has made 60 acquisitions since he founded Salesforce in 1999. The market—because Salesforce stock price is already down 8% just on rumor of the acquisition.
Best guess deal will be announced this afternoon or first thing tomorrow morning. This deal is driven mostly by Benioff volatile relationship with Microsoft, which bought LinkedIn out from under him after he had first approached the social media firm.
Benioff is telling folks first thing he will do after acquisition is file antitrust suit against Microsoft for bundling teams (Slack product competitor) with Windows Office Suite. This has been a loser ever since Novell bought WordPerfect, paying over a billion dollars and selling 15 months later for $115M. Let Him Go.¹ By the way, better-than-expected new movie release with two old pros—Diane Lane and Kevin Costner.
Side Deal—Ozark Mountain Jubilee. A non-COVID medical breakthrough—blood test that reveals early stages of Alzheimer’s and this is coming out a legitimate scientific company called C2N based in St. Louis, Missouri, and is loaded with M.D.’s instead of a slightly attractive Stanford dropout who wore black turtlenecks to intimate Steve Jobs.
IPO Glow—The C2N blood test will replace a current $5,000 brain scan usually not covered by insurance and will push the company in the IPO pipeline. C2N can market the test with some commercial labs but will not be widely available until FDA approval. C2N is in good hands with Dr. Ilana Fogelman who leads its regulatory group.
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Entries/Exits—Andrea reminded me yesterday that Dec 1st was deadline and I have put off for four months. We are moving to subscription model so don’t be surprised to see a Subscribe Now button between now and Jan. 10th, publisher's drop-dead date on friends and Oxford family free.
Good news is that we have over 1,700 active, engaged CEOs in group and we will be coordinating a speakers and podcast circuit among companies. Best idea we’ve had since Morning Report.