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Three themes this weekend, my dear friends. The first is fear, namely market concern. The second is loathing, or my gut reaction to a particular bit of corporate news. And, finally, corporate gifting, a dive into a fascinating startup war. Let’s go!
Fear
DocuSign took a gut punch this week, with the e-signature company’s stock price dropping by more than 40% on Friday as I write to you. That’s among the worst post-earnings share-price movements I have ever seen, aside from cases of fraud or other corporate shenanigans.
What happened? DocuSign beat revenue expectations in its most recent quarter (Q3 fiscal 2022). But the company’s billings — a proxy for future revenue — came in sharply under expectations. And the company’s CEO, Dan Springer, said this in its investor letter:
After six quarters of accelerated growth, we saw customers return to more normalized buying…
