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How to Survive an Acquisition

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Re: How to Survive an Acquisition

#121

Post by mathattack »

mathgeek wrote: post #11

> 3-4 hour daily commute It saddens me that anyone thinks this is acceptable. I know some people don't mind it, but what a waste of your life to do this for any extended period of time.

A lot depends on what you do during those hours, and what the work expectations are.

At one point in my life I lived a block from work, and put in 12-14 hours every day and fielded calls 2-3 times a week at 2-3am. That's no different than an 8-10 hour a day job with a 4 hour commute and pager duty.

When I was single it was ok - I had many friends at work and that was our life. I wouldn't try to do it with a family.

When introverts read or are productive on their commute, why not? But I currently struggle with a 30 min commute and have become a podcast addict.

Re: How to Survive an Acquisition

#122

Post by wernercd »

Radim wrote: post #109
moron4hire wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Life is so very short. What value can you put on 25 extra days with your kids in a year. They're only going to be home for ~20 years. That's ~500 more days you get to have with them. An extra year and a half. It's a no brainer. There is no way you could pay me to give up a year and a half of my family.

There is no way you could pay me to give up a year and a half of my family. You're very special if there is "no way" someone could pay you to trade "family time" for "work"! By agreeing to participate in the work process, most people these days "give up" not 25 days a year, but full 100. Of course, there is a price tag they put on that time -- the salary. This single-minded "family time is infinitely more valuable th…

Are you being obtuse on purpose?

You are taking the argument to the other extreme: "Family time is SOOOO important, why are you even working? hypocrite"

Of course he has to "trade family time for work" aka salary. Of course he has to spend (probably) 40 hours a week (not including lunch/driving) to keep the bills paid... Everyone - except lottery winners, retired people, those lucky to be born into money, etc - has to do that.

But, as with anything, there comes a tipping point where the time spent isn't worth they money earned.

Assuming he was paid $100k (just a made up number), at 40 hours a week and 30 hours of driving, he would get paid ~$27/hour. (100k / 70 hours / 52 weeks)

If he cuts his pay to $75k (25% pay cut) and instead drives 30 minutes per day, he's now getting paid $29/hour (75k / 45 hours / 52 weeks). He "nets" less, but gets paid more per hour and has more time for "important" things.

Those are made up numbers, but for a "pay cut" he could get paid more per hour and have more time at home.

Does he quit because "family time is infinitely more important"? No... he's not an extremist that has to pull some basic, common-sense notion to an absurd degree. He made a trade off: It's called reality for most people.

Re: How to Survive an Acquisition

#123

Post by wernercd »

infinite8s wrote: post #73
marssaxman wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I never got used to the Microsoft commute, and that was rarely worse than 90 minutes coming home. It sucked, it continued to suck, it never got any better, it ruined my day, I hated my life, and it felt so good to drive away on my last day of that terrible job knowing I would never again have to spend any time on SR520 if I didn't want to. (I avoided that road for years afterward, actually, even when it would have be…

Commuting by car is much worse than commuting by bus or train (for any time greater than 45 min).

I commute ~60 minutes each direction by car. My drive is simple: few minutes to main road from work/home... 55 minutes north/south on a single road... few minutes to work/home.

The time honestly dissapears... Podcasts and/or audio books.

The scary part is how much time is spent on "auto-pilot".

Re: How to Survive an Acquisition

#124

Post by jschwartzi »

marssaxman wrote: post #120
sammydavis wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wow, where did you live where getting to microsoft via 520 took 1.5 hours? 1 hour i believe as an occasional max. maybe across puget sound?

Getting to Microsoft never took all that long - it was getting home that took forever and sucked the life out of me.

Yeah, I have the same issue going south on I-405 in the afternoon. The road is clogged from 3 miles north of Bellevue and remains clogged until a couple miles south of I-90. I used to spend 50% of my commute time in that pile.

We really needed to build rail in the space where we added a toll lane.

Re: How to Survive an Acquisition

#125

Post by logfromblammo »

tdeck wrote: post #77
logfromblammo wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have been through five as an employee of the acquired company. My advice is to polish up your resume and dig your job search network out of the mothballs the instant you catch a whiff of one. If you're lucky, you will have approximately one year to find safe harbor before the storm hits. I always ask leading questions about ownership structure and acquisitions at interviews now.

Would you mind sharing some examples of good questions to ask in an interview? It seems particularly hard to evaluate companies as an interviewee when they're trying to be secretive.

I don't know about good questions, but here's one that I ask.

"I have been through a few acquisitions, and all of them ended badly for me. Can you tell me a bit about the ownership structure of your company and their exit strategy?"

You have to watch their facial expression as you ask it, as they will almost certainly tell you that the current owners have no plans to sell that they are aware of. (Your interviewers probably won't include any owner required for a majority bloc.) But they also might tell you some names, and you can check for yourself after the interview what generally happens to their peon-level employees.

Re: How to Survive an Acquisition

#126

Post by infinite8s »

marssaxman wrote: post #87
infinite8s wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Commuting by car is much worse than commuting by bus or train (for any time greater than 45 min).

Your bus options must be a hell of a lot nicer than mine. (I haven't had the option of commuting by train since college, alas.)

NYC metro area - I've been commuting by train, but I know many people who live in NJ who commute in by bus.

Re: How to Survive an Acquisition

#127

Post by elcct »

mathgeek wrote: post #11

> 3-4 hour daily commute It saddens me that anyone thinks this is acceptable. I know some people don't mind it, but what a waste of your life to do this for any extended period of time.

It is ridiculous indeed. If your work can be done from home there is no reason to come to office apart from occasional meetings. Even things like scrum stand ups can be done via hangouts.

Re: How to Survive an Acquisition

#128

Post by khaolak »

HCIdivision17 wrote: post #68
spimmy wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, or just completely oblivious. Most of the technical "advice" they insisted on giving us was just completely wrong. Also, gotta say, I was never as self-conscious about being a woman in tech until we got acquired by Facebook. I've never had so many experiences of walking in to a room (as a tech lead) and having a dude look me up and down and say, "ummm, how technical are you?"

Like, literally? I could see a question like that being asked , but I have no idea what a possible answer would be for anyone. Perhaps "7.2" might be pretty ok, but otherwise I can't fathom a single answer that isn't sarcastic, snarking, or arrogant. I'm plonking that alongside "when did you stop beating your wife"-style trap questions.

I can think of a dozen perfectly good answers.

"I'm the tech lead", "I was a developer for X years before moving into management", "Fully technical - I wrote/designed this blah", "I have a degree in X", etc.

I ask people how technical they are all the time - recruiters, project managers, designers, marketing people, product managers. It helps me communicate effectively. I won't describe a problem in the same way to a senior engineer as I would to a non-technical marketing person.

Depending on the parent commenter's job title, people may not have known whether she was a technical leader or a people manager upon first meeting, and asked the question without ever even giving a thought to gender.

Re: How to Survive an Acquisition

#129

Post by jimjag »

ldehaan wrote: post #10

Founder is so far from employee it's ridiculous you even comment. It's sad that most founders don't care or don't understand that sometimes they managed to hire people that actually care about the business, and could have helped make it better. When I see a founder sell his business, all I ever think is (as I'm sure most do), what a selfish asshole.

I gotta admit, I've seen more cases of founders selling their business, taking the huge payouts (and screwing their employees at the same time) and simply leaving tech completely. It's not that they are burned out; they simply got what they wanted and moved on. The business, and the tech, was a means to an end, pure and simple.

Re: How to Survive an Acquisition

#130

Post by vhata »

jonathankoren wrote: post #78
VeilEm wrote: post #4

> One of Facebook’s internal slogans is something like “always do what’s best for Facebook”. Is that real? Like they really have this slogan that like comes straight out of a modern interpretation of Marx's theory of alienation shoved right into their employees faces? http://i.imgur.com/oVb4J0b.png

I never saw that. However, the "Stay Focused & Keep Shipping" signs always seemed dark to me.

That one was made around the time of the IPO. It means "stop watching the stock price and keep doing what you do".
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