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  "documentTitle": "Twist Bioscience (TWST)",
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  "authorName": "Scorpion Capital",
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  "presentationDate": "2022-11-15 00:00:00",
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  "notes": "The slide uses direct quotes from an ex-employee to frame Twist's business model as unsustainable and predatory.",
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      "text": "I don't think they're ever going to recover from that.",
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      "text": "Only got business due to extreme pricing; “impossible” to recover from price death spiral; never “going to recover from that”; competing against players with other sources of revenue vs. Twist with only one loss leader",
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      "text": "“Selling below the cost of their product”; wrecked pricing in the industry and put companies out of business by price dumping; destroyed the industry and made it unsustainable for everyone",
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      "text": "“They went to market against a bunch of entrenched competitors and won customers with price solely because what you’re receiving is a commodity, and it’s assumed to be all equivalent to some extent, at least for your purpose, your intended use. So, they displaced people with pricing. Once you displace price and that badly, it’s almost impossible to lift it again because there’s been some market follow into that space, which I’m sure is hurting everybody else as well. I don’t think they’re ever going to recover from that. We are probably going to see more competitors drop out. They’re competing with companies that have other sources of revenue, and gene synthesis is just something that helps support maybe their downstream businesses like GenScript. GenScript charges a little more for the gene synthesis, but they also do all sorts of work with the gene synthesis that generates revenue.” --Ex-employee in senior product management and sales leadership roles",
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      "text": "“I think they’re selling below the cost of their product. They set their pricing based on assumed cost and the fact that they have cash to weather it. They did change pricing in the industry and have hurt some people there. They put Gen9 out of business using that pricing, and Gen9 had fairly good fundamentals from a manufacturing standpoint. Profitability wasn’t shared grossly internally. I can do my own math. I can run a business unit and see what things are costing, and I have a pretty good feeling we were losing a lot of money, and, of course, when we went public, that was reported. Honestly, I think they’ve taken too much value out of the market with their pricing for it to be sustainable for anybody.” -Ex-employee in senior product management and sales leadership roles",
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      "text": "“I think they're selling below the cost of their product. They set their pricing based on assumed cost and the fact that they have cash to weather it. They put Gen9 out of business using that pricing... I don't think they're ever going to recover from that.” — Ex-employee in senior product management and sales leadership roles",
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      "text": "Source: Scorpion Capital consultation calls with experts",
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      "text": "An ex-employee in a senior role stated that by “selling below the cost of their product” – again, textbook price dumping – Twist wrecked the industry for everyone and took “too much value of the market with their pricing for it to be sustainable for anybody.” He indicated that Twist won customers “solely” because of price and now has no way out of the downward spiral: “once you displace pricing and that badly, it’s almost impossible to lift it again”; “I don’t think they’re ever going to recover from that.”",
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