Twilio was founded in 2008 as a voice API company, and quickly grew into something much bigger. It went public in 2016, and business boomed as the Covid-19 pandemic shut down most offices and schools and demand for digital communications soared.

In 2024, Twilio’s fortunes had changed. Several activist investors were demanding big changes at the company—which had been going through bumpy times marked by underperforming acquisitions and large layoffs. Founder and former CEO Jeff Lawson was forced out, and then-president of communications Khozema Shipchandler took the helm.

In the last two and a half years, Shipchandler has righted the company, returning Twilio to profitability—with revenue up 22% year-over-year in its most recent quarter—and creating new business opportunities. I talked to Shipchandler about the turnaround under activists’ glare. An excerpt from our conversation is later in this newsletter.

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There were more signs of a slowing economy last week. In July, the U.S. lost 23,000 jobs—far out of line with economists’ predictions of 83,000 new jobs created. The largest cuts came from local government education, retail and finance, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. This nudges the unemployment rate down a bit from June—it was 4.1% in July, compared to 4.2% a month earlier—but the labor participation rate, which is the share of people actively employed or seeking positions, was at a more-than-five-year low of 61.4%. Payment processor ADP also reported far fewer new private sector jobs in July than expected: 44,000 jobs created, versus 75,000 expected.

As earnings reports come in, companies are showing the impact of the job market stress on consumers. McDonald’s, which a consumer analyst told Forbes is “meaningfully overindexed to lower income households,” reported a U.S. sales increase of just 0.8% last week—coming from higher prices paid by fewer customers.

But for oil companies, business is booming thanks to the ongoing war in Iran. ExxonMobil reported quarterly earnings of $14.5 billion—more than twice what it made a year ago—and Chevron more than quadrupled its quarterly earnings compared to a year ago, posting $12 billion in the quarter. President Donald Trump remarked that these oil giants were “making too much money.” Meanwhile, Phillips 66 reported $3.8 billion in its latest quarter, and is capitalizing on another military action taken by the Trump administration. The company is the world’s third largest buyer of Venezuelan crude, and plans to build a leading position in discounted heavy oil........

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