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Google Acquires Aardvark For $50 million

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Re: Google Acquires Aardvark For $50 million

#41

Post by zaidf »

seiji wrote: post #22
bgraves wrote: post #8

Wow! I've been an avid 'Varker for sometime now and this is very surprising! I think this is probably more of a talent acquisition than anything: Just the _highlights_ from http://vark.com/team * Max Ventilla - former Googler; marketing and monetization * Nathan Stoll - former Googler; headed Google News for three years * Fritz Schneider - former Googler; founded and led Google's Firefox and Safe Browsing teams * Win…

There was a time I believed all corporate activities were based only on merit. Anything not completely merit derived would be illegal. That's what we're made to believe with all kinds of anti-descriminition laws (you can't ask age, about kids, etc during interviews for example). It turns out, everything is friend based. Know rich people? They'll help you get rich too. Have a project you don't want to do inside of Goo…

Have a project you don't want to do inside of Google? Just quit, make it anyway, then they'll re-hire you with a $5M per head bonus.

Way off base IMO. If it was true, there would be very few ex-googler companies failing. And there would be A LOT more acquisitions by Google.

I have used Vark. And I think this was a SOLID technology acquisition and well worth $50M.

If I was a Vark founder, I'd feel insulted by your post.

Re: Google Acquires Aardvark For $50 million

#42

Post by DaniFong »

jamiequint wrote: post #7

This price seems really high considering the amount of traction aardvark had (not much). $50M is a pricey talent acquisition

It's a great product with a great team. Furthermore, acquirers are known to believe that with their brand and marketing might, with tight integration in their existing solutions, they can make a product succeed.

This might be wrong more often than it's wrong, but if it does work the payoff could be enormous. Who knows in this case. But I suggest you think of it as an investment at $50 million pre-money. That's a little pricey, but might still be worth it.

Re: Google Acquires Aardvark For $50 million

#43

Post by frossie »

martian wrote: post #15
icco wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be curious to know how you use the service. Most of the questions I see asked on it seem pretty poor and uninformative.

If you ask an interesting, detailed question, you'll usually get something unique in return. An example of a question (and an awesome answer) I submitted: http://vark.com/t/cad4a0

You thought that was an awesome answer? IMHO the top Google result for the search "Borges where to start" gives a better one.

Like many social networking features, I don't get this one. I sorta-know what my friends know - I am more interested in stuff my friends don't know.

Re: Google Acquires Aardvark For $50 million

#44

Post by seiji »

paul wrote: post #39
seiji wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was a time I believed all corporate activities were based only on merit. Anything not completely merit derived would be illegal. That's what we're made to believe with all kinds of anti-descriminition laws (you can't ask age, about kids, etc during interviews for example). It turns out, everything is friend based. Know rich people? They'll help you get rich too. Have a project you don't want to do inside of Goo…

You just want to world to recognize you as "having merit" and give you money? You want to be successful, but are unwilling to make any sort of effort? Create something remarkable and people with money will find you.

I see how it can be read that way.

By "merit," I meant actual accomplishments and not some ethereal quality of a person or group just sitting idle.

I'm glad you chimed in though because you're one of the cases that kind-of fits the model above. From a complete outsider's point of view, it looks like friends giving friends tens of millions of dollars for nebulous reasons.

* Disclaimer: Text is a poor medium of communication and usually comes across more hostile in the reader's eyes than intended. There is much levity here.

Re: Google Acquires Aardvark For $50 million

#45

Post by hackerbob »

quilby wrote: post #37
hackerbob wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When listening to Sergey talk about Google Buzz ten minutes into this video he brings up the value of using buzz to ask questions to his contacts with the recommendation system directing the question to who best can answer it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_W6Qbob2mg#t=10m10s I was like "this sounds like Aardvark".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_W6Qbob2mg#t=0m16s Really? Pagerank doesnt have anything to do with twitter and facebook. Its a great idea, and its probably one of the major factors that made google a success, but today it is not a very important factor in google being a bigger company than fb and twitter.

Perhaps I poorly worded by saying "ten minutes in", I meant starting from 10 minute and 10 second mark Sergey brings up how he's been using the service internally.

Edit:But going back to your point, I not sure Pagerank is relevant to twitter/facebook, and I don't think Sergey was saying that it was. But I do think their could be search problem emerging in social networks when people start having several hundred friends and you want to find relevant conversations to your interests going on within your network.

Re: Google Acquires Aardvark For $50 million

#46

Post by Timothee »

seiji wrote: post #22
bgraves wrote: post #8

Wow! I've been an avid 'Varker for sometime now and this is very surprising! I think this is probably more of a talent acquisition than anything: Just the _highlights_ from http://vark.com/team * Max Ventilla - former Googler; marketing and monetization * Nathan Stoll - former Googler; headed Google News for three years * Fritz Schneider - former Googler; founded and led Google's Firefox and Safe Browsing teams * Win…

There was a time I believed all corporate activities were based only on merit. Anything not completely merit derived would be illegal. That's what we're made to believe with all kinds of anti-descriminition laws (you can't ask age, about kids, etc during interviews for example). It turns out, everything is friend based. Know rich people? They'll help you get rich too. Have a project you don't want to do inside of Goo…

There's some truth to what you're saying (I'm afraid), though a lot of it is more general than just "rich people will help you get rich". You'll learn more around smart people and you'll be more likely to be a criminal if your friends pull you into it.

But overall your negativity throws me off a bit. One definitely notices when a company with many ex-Googlers is bought by Google. But if you think that's how the world is, nothing really stops you from joining Google: what were these guys doing before joining Google in the first place?

Networking definitely helps in a lot of situations (to find a job, to make a deal, to get in touch with the right people), but you can do something to arrive at a place where you can easily network with the right people.

Re: Google Acquires Aardvark For $50 million

#47

Post by Timothee »

alavrik wrote: post #33
henrikschroder wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you quit a company, do a successful startup, and then get re-acquired by the company you quit in the first place, chances are that you don't want to go back to work for them again. If you did, why did you quit your job in the first place?

To make a lot more money, for example.

Though in their case, with 4 founders, $6M invested and a $50M exit, it's not "that much" money.

I wouldn't spit on it obviously, but considering some of these guys' former positions at Google, they had probably made a good amount from stocks and such. What I'm trying to say is that it's probably in the same order of magnitude of their worth before that.

Re: Google Acquires Aardvark For $50 million

#48

Post by [deleted] »

bgraves wrote: post #8

Wow! I've been an avid 'Varker for sometime now and this is very surprising! I think this is probably more of a talent acquisition than anything: Just the _highlights_ from http://vark.com/team * Max Ventilla - former Googler; marketing and monetization * Nathan Stoll - former Googler; headed Google News for three years * Fritz Schneider - former Googler; founded and led Google's Firefox and Safe Browsing teams * Win…

[deleted]

Re: Google Acquires Aardvark For $50 million

#49

Post by fjabre »

bgraves wrote: post #8

Wow! I've been an avid 'Varker for sometime now and this is very surprising! I think this is probably more of a talent acquisition than anything: Just the _highlights_ from http://vark.com/team * Max Ventilla - former Googler; marketing and monetization * Nathan Stoll - former Googler; headed Google News for three years * Fritz Schneider - former Googler; founded and led Google's Firefox and Safe Browsing teams * Win…

Seems like a pretty large founding team and a lot of ex-googlers there. I counted 11 senior/founding members on their site.

$50 million sounds like a lot initially but considering the size of the founding team and that they raised 6 million from VCs I don't think any of them would want to retire just yet.

Re: Google Acquires Aardvark For $50 million

#50

Post by sachinag »

$50 million is the same price as GrandCentral, which became Google Voice. It's all but impossible to tell how important strategically any one acquisition is to Google until they execute on it. This feels more important than Jaiku/Dodgeball, but really, only time will tell if $50 million was a bargain or a giveaway.
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