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Alibaba acquires Berlin-based data Artisans for $103M

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Re: Alibaba acquires Berlin-based data Artisans for $103M

#11

Post by jamesblonde »

jlangenauer wrote: post #6
jamesblonde wrote: post #3

What is it about European Enterprise Data software companies that they never make it past this stage without either being bought up or moving to the States? MySQL, JBoss, Elastic. The list is much longer.

One reason is because I think there isn't such an obsession with becoming a billionaire here. If you're a founder, and someone offers you a deal which will personally see you net €10-20m after tax, why wouldn't you take it?

I agree. However, I know the Data Artisans founders personally. There like like 6 or 7 of them, and Prof Volker Merkl (main person behind the original project, Stratosphere). Then, they did two funding rounds. Nobody is coming out with near 10m euro. Half that, before tax, probably after a few years of golden handcuffs. So, my guess is 3m euro after 10+ years. Not bad, but you couldn't buy a good house in the valley or SF for that.

Re: Alibaba acquires Berlin-based data Artisans for $103M

#12

Post by Roritharr »

lawrenceyan wrote: post #7

I wonder what it would take to create the set of conditions for another "Silicon Valley / SF Bay Area" to appear in Europe. It seems like inevitably, any tech companies that are successful always end up getting bought out and leave to the U.S. instead of staying. What are the primary issues? Lack of VC funding, culture, government policy? On the surface, it doesn't seem like there's anything particularly lacking, at…

It's mostly generations of VC Funding. There's a genuine lack of experience on both sides so only the 0,01% of Entrepreneurs and VCs are capable of playing at an international level.

It's getting better, but not fast enough so that "just raise elsewhere" is a common answer, of course that's a route also most can't take for one reason or another.

Re: Alibaba acquires Berlin-based data Artisans for $103M

#14

Post by rusk »

jamesblonde wrote: post #8
rusk wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On top of Apache ... abandoning open source Hold on ... what?!?

I think you're mis-parsing what i (hastily) wrote. On top of (these) Apache (projects being abandoned), ....

Okay that makes more sense ... you've misplaced a comma:

> On top of Apache, Mongo, Neo4J, Redis Labs

EDIT sorry, not the comma. Still early morning here. But you've used "Apache" as an umbrella term for "some" Apache projects. Fair enough.

Re: Alibaba acquires Berlin-based data Artisans for $103M

#15

Post by azag0 »

jamesblonde wrote: post #11
jlangenauer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason is because I think there isn't such an obsession with becoming a billionaire here. If you're a founder, and someone offers you a deal which will personally see you net €10-20m after tax, why wouldn't you take it?

I agree. However, I know the Data Artisans founders personally. There like like 6 or 7 of them, and Prof Volker Merkl (main person behind the original project, Stratosphere). Then, they did two funding rounds. Nobody is coming out with near 10m euro. Half that, before tax, probably after a few years of golden handcuffs. So, my guess is 3m euro after 10+ years. Not bad, but you couldn't buy a good house in the valley…

For a perspective, 3m euro is about two lifetimes of an average salary in Berlin (north of 2k monthly after taxes)

Re: Alibaba acquires Berlin-based data Artisans for $103M

#16

Post by usrusr »

jlangenauer wrote: post #6
jamesblonde wrote: post #3

What is it about European Enterprise Data software companies that they never make it past this stage without either being bought up or moving to the States? MySQL, JBoss, Elastic. The list is much longer.

One reason is because I think there isn't such an obsession with becoming a billionaire here. If you're a founder, and someone offers you a deal which will personally see you net €10-20m after tax, why wouldn't you take it?

Slightly related is how it is mathematically impossible for VC to develop that "99 duds, one win" mindset that dominates SV when wins are not expected to become big enough to compensate that many losses. High failure rate VC cannot exist without robber-baron style exploitation of the occasional victory. Only bootstrappers are free to be modest.

Re: Alibaba acquires Berlin-based data Artisans for $103M

#17

Post by locklock »

jamesblonde wrote: post #11
jlangenauer wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One reason is because I think there isn't such an obsession with becoming a billionaire here. If you're a founder, and someone offers you a deal which will personally see you net €10-20m after tax, why wouldn't you take it?

I agree. However, I know the Data Artisans founders personally. There like like 6 or 7 of them, and Prof Volker Merkl (main person behind the original project, Stratosphere). Then, they did two funding rounds. Nobody is coming out with near 10m euro. Half that, before tax, probably after a few years of golden handcuffs. So, my guess is 3m euro after 10+ years. Not bad, but you couldn't buy a good house in the valley…

You can certainly buy a nice house in Berlin for it though!

Re: Alibaba acquires Berlin-based data Artisans for $103M

#18

Post by eastendguy »

azag0 wrote: post #15
jamesblonde wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. However, I know the Data Artisans founders personally. There like like 6 or 7 of them, and Prof Volker Merkl (main person behind the original project, Stratosphere). Then, they did two funding rounds. Nobody is coming out with near 10m euro. Half that, before tax, probably after a few years of golden handcuffs. So, my guess is 3m euro after 10+ years. Not bad, but you couldn't buy a good house in the valley…

For a perspective, 3m euro is about two lifetimes of an average salary in Berlin (north of 2k monthly after taxes)

Nobody in IT earns only 2K a month in Berlin...

Re: Alibaba acquires Berlin-based data Artisans for $103M

#19

Post by shinryuu »

eastendguy wrote: post #18
azag0 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a perspective, 3m euro is about two lifetimes of an average salary in Berlin (north of 2k monthly after taxes)

Nobody in IT earns only 2K a month in Berlin...

It's after tax. I earn 2.5k after tax.

Re: Alibaba acquires Berlin-based data Artisans for $103M

#20

Post by Rainymood »

lawrenceyan wrote: post #7

I wonder what it would take to create the set of conditions for another "Silicon Valley / SF Bay Area" to appear in Europe. It seems like inevitably, any tech companies that are successful always end up getting bought out and leave to the U.S. instead of staying. What are the primary issues? Lack of VC funding, culture, government policy? On the surface, it doesn't seem like there's anything particularly lacking, at…

It's attitude and sheer luck. People in the US seem to take more risk, this leads to huge rewards (start-ups) but also leads to an insane amount of inequality in wealth. I have never seen more in-your-face wealth inequality than in America (and yes, I've been to China and Asia in general quite often). Then a second component is the sheer amount of people trying their luck. Imagine that winning in a startup is like tossing a coin with a p=1e-7 probability of landing on "win". The Netherlands has 2.000.000 people aged 20-30 and the US has 40.000.000 people aged 20-30. Imagine that all these people start a startup we have a probability of P(X>0) with n=2.000.000, p=1e-7 is given by 0.18 and the probability for P(X>0) with n=40.000.000, p=1e-7 is 0.98. The point I'm trying to make is that a lot or more people in the US try to start something, this leads to many more failures, but also to some singular huge successes.
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