In Vino Veritas

In Vino there is Truth; In Truth Social, there is Whining

In trying to be clever about a writing assignment given to me by Ed McCann at a party last night, (the founder of “Writers Read”, with the theme of “in wine there is truth”, which will take place at City Winery this Fall), I could not help but think of Truth Social.  I’ve never been on the social site, but trying to wax poetic, and without the help of wine this morning, the truth is, I am brought back to politics as I start to type. 

Last night, while at the party and given this assignment, the social truth is many conversations went to the wrongs & evils in the world--from the invasion of the Spongy Moth caterpillars to the problems in the Middle-East, and of course, back to Donald Trump.  It’s hard to avoid when Trump recently reiterated his claim that since I am Jewish and will vote for Biden, I must hate my religion and Israel.  I can only respond to him with more hate and say, Fuck You Don, which is easier to say under the influence (but it is not that hard sober either).

While he was a defendant in court last week, he posted on Truth Social the “creation of a unified Reich”.   Yes, us liberals were always a little paranoid about his Hitler wannabe personality from his very sly references from before, but no deliberation is necessary, this is getting a little too real.   There seems to be no stopping him from a coup de ta of a second term.   He has promised to be a dictator on Day 1, he has dinners with Nick Fuentes, an outspoken antisemite and one of the country’s most prominent white supremacists.  Even Biden is now pointing this out publicly, but there seems to be no stopping him.  And the mother fucker does not even drink wine. 

In Wine There Is Truth, but in Trump there is no truth.  How ironic his social media platform has a valuation of over $6 billion yet has substantial financial losses and very little traffic.  Yet, the social truth is truth social should not be worth anything.   Trump Media, owner of Truth Social posted a loss for first 3-months of this year of $327m.    This was on revenues of $770,500 in the first quarter, which is down from $1.1m in the first quarter of 2023.    In March, the site recorded 1.5m unique visitors and the stock is held by approximately 621,000 shareholders. 

By comparison, Facebook/Meta has 845m monthly users and market cap of $1.2T.   Twitter has 215m monthly users and market cap of $41b, and Pinterest 250m users and market value of $10b.   Truth Social’s valuation is not a measure of the truth, but of the social intoxication this madman has on the worst instincts of our culture.  And while that is frightening, it also is giving me a rash like the damn spongy moths that are still caterpillars.   

I’m irritated because I work my ass off trying to be honorable, speak the truth, run a business that is good for society and I live in a world of real valuations.   The basic metrics in the hospitality industry as a private company are:  you get about 10x your bottom line or 1x your top line.  That would make City Winery worth just over $100m.   If we went public and I could spin a good tale, maybe we could get valued twice that.  But we certainly gross MORE than Truth Social and make a MUCH LARGER profit, we even have more visitors to our website, but are not valued at 2200 times gross revenues.   That is nuts.  Truth Social’s valuation based on visitors, 1.5m /6b= 4400x number of users.   That is even more nuts.  Whereas Meta 123x users or approximately 8.45x revenues, Twitter is down to approx. 3.4b in revenues, now, with a market cap 41b giving it 11x revenues.

Accordingly, City Winery using “social truth” metrics would be worth $322 Billion, the same as Home Depot. Honey, it’s time to put in a new pool.    Come on.  And you know that somehow, Trump is going to take a few billion off the table before the crime becomes obvious, and his social followers sober up.   (I’m itching more, even though they say don’t irritate the skin from this one-inch caterpillars).    If only Trump drank wine, would there be truth? 

(Oh and btw, I am not submitting this as my assignment, will write a less irritating one)