Unity Software Inc. (NYSE:U) Q3 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Joshua Tilton: And if I could just sneak one more in from an investor perspective, there’s been a string of some interesting news releases. Obviously, the decision not to guide next quarter, the full year is another, I guess, piece of interesting news that we have to grapple with. there’s still the, there’s still the, how do I say this? You’re still going to guide for ’24 next year, which will be another important catalyst for the stock. I understand that there’s a lot of moving pieces and a lot of excitement around opportunities going forward. But is there anything you can just give us in terms of timeline of expectation for when you expect growth to kind of accelerate to maybe help ease investors? I don’t know, worries around the lack of, where the numbers are going in the near term?

James Whitehurst: I’ll start with some comments and Luis, you’re probably better equipped to be able to answer specifically. Well, I think that even as we get into next year, more focused execution generally leads to, success in the marketplace. And so, I’m thinking ’24 already just being more focused. You’ll see kind of improved growth performance. And then again, we have a whole series of growth drivers that we need to go execute against. Those, we are working through as we kind of do the portfolio work. So we’ll have to really talk about that more in ’24. But, when we get in January, February, I guess the next time we speak with you, we’ll be able to give you a lot more detail around that. But I am confident both seeing the size of the markets and our position in those markets.

And, and I’m also just confident without having all the plans laid out, but, for it that just more focused execution all the time and all of my experiences I’ve seen leads to better performance on the revenue side. So without the full numbers kind of ready to talk about, I’m confident in next year.

Luis Visoso: Totally agree. We’ll give you more flexibility, with our Q4 earnings. So in a few months, I think Jim mentioned the opportunity is big. The portfolio is right that we already have. Now we just need to be more focused. And as Jim said, we just need to execute. But we think we will. We’re doing everything we can to have a very strong 2024. That’s our goal.

Richard Davis: And then our last question will be with Jason Bazinet at Citi.

Jason Bazinet: Thanks so much. Appreciate you coming in and making these changes so quickly. I just wondered, there’s obviously a wide berth that you have in terms of how the magnitude of the changes that you might pursue in terms of putting the portfolio. Are there any guardrails as you’re going through these changes? I.e, no matter what happens, we don’t want free cash to go negative or no matter what happens, we don’t want EBITDA to go negative. Or is it really, we may have to go through a period that’s, more difficult than some of those, key financial metrics that the street cares about because it’ll paint a better picture in ’24, ’25?

James Whitehurst: I mean, I’ll start. I mean, frankly, the good news and the things that we’re looking at, it’s not like we’re peeling off businesses that are, highly EBITDA positive because they don’t fit. Right. I mean, we I think in a good way, we’re investing in a lot of things. And so this is more about looking at kind of peeling off some things that we were doing that that frankly aren’t profitable. So I don’t think you’re going to see a real dip at all, even this quarter, and certainly not as we get into next year. But Luis, you’re?

Luis Visoso: Yes, I think the only the only other thing I would add is we’re not thinking about a long transition. Right. Once decisions are made, which should be this quarter, we will start implementing this quarter. We’ll be 100 percent done next quarter. And that’s it. It’s not like a business model transition that takes a year or two years or three years to complete. These are things we were planning to do and execute now.

James Whitehurst: And so the one might be a little because we haven’t finished it. But I would always I wouldn’t think our margins in Q2 would be that different than Q4 next year. Right? I mean, this is a rip off the band-aid reset and then we’re going.

Richard Davis: Well, that that wraps it up, Jim. If you want to have some closing, two or two or three say hello and then we’ll be done.

James Whitehurst: Yes. So I really appreciate your time. We I just want to emphasize again that there you want to Fred Bluntly. When I first agreed to come in, when I kind of got the call, I thought, OK, this — this Company has some opportunity. And, I’m sure like a lot of companies, doing too much. And there’s some focus. But I have to say, I have become more and more convicted in and excited about the long term growth opportunities of the Company today than I was a month ago. I mean, this really is a very powerful, very defensible moat of technology. We didn’t get a chance to go into that. It’s valuable in so many places. And it’s a matter of really kind of picking, what is the pathway to focused execution, deliver results on one at another, deliver on that at another.

So it’s but the good news is because of just the nature of the technology and the fact that is a platform business, it’s very highly defensible. And again, real time 3D, which one could argue is interactive 3D. We’re really the only way to do that across myriad platforms at scale. And when you kind of think about the number of areas that makes sense, whether it is consumer products, companies, whether that’s, industrial companies and visualization, obviously in gaming, I feel like we have a number of opportunities. Our key is not that the key is making sure that we build a pathway to profitable growth by executing each of those in the appropriate order so we can continue to deliver, results that you can see and be transparent about it. But, clearly that opportunity is there.

Richard Davis: Great. Thank you all. And we’ll see you in future weeks and months and over time. Thank you very much.

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