Microsoft Crosses The Line • Hacker News Board

Re: Microsoft Crosses The Line

#31

Post by gizmo » Tue, Jul 08, 2008, 9:01 PM UTC

raganwald wrote: post #28

gizmo wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not trivializing the matter. Nobody likes to fire and nobody likes to get fired. But a lot of people are let go after every merger - that's just how it works. So if a merger makes sense financially then you have no choice.

There's a very specific fiduciary responsibility with public companies. There are widows with some of their retirement savings invested in tech stocks like YHOO, and the board must act in their interests. I suggest that with YC-scale businesses there's a very different dynamic. Imagine starting such a thing, building it to 100+ employees, and then selling out in such a way that 75+ of your folks are let go by the buy…

You're not making much sense. There's no secret. Nobody's hiding anything. So I would tell them the truth. What could I possibly achieve by lying in the scenario you describe?

You're suggesting that people would rather work for somebody with no experience and no money than for somebody who has already built and sold a successful venture?

I don't get it.

Re: Microsoft Crosses The Line

#32

Post by rbanffy » Tue, Jul 08, 2008, 9:37 PM UTC

josefresco wrote: post #19

rbanffy wrote: post #13

It seems Ballmer likes to play with his food.

The correct analogy would be that Ballmer is "licking his cookie" so know one else wants it. And no, that was not a sexual reference, think middle school lunch room.

I was thinking more in the lines of killer whales playing with their prey.

Re: Microsoft Crosses The Line

#33

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Jul 08, 2008, 10:04 PM UTC

LogicHoleFlaw wrote: post #10

My knowledge of business at this level is incomplete. What would be the implications of replacing Yahoo's board of directors?

[deleted]

Re: Microsoft Crosses The Line

#34

Post by raganwald » Tue, Jul 08, 2008, 10:32 PM UTC

gizmo wrote: post #31

raganwald wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a very specific fiduciary responsibility with public companies. There are widows with some of their retirement savings invested in tech stocks like YHOO, and the board must act in their interests. I suggest that with YC-scale businesses there's a very different dynamic. Imagine starting such a thing, building it to 100+ employees, and then selling out in such a way that 75+ of your folks are let go by the buy…

You're not making much sense. There's no secret. Nobody's hiding anything. So I would tell them the truth. What could I possibly achieve by lying in the scenario you describe? You're suggesting that people would rather work for somebody with no experience and no money than for somebody who has already built and sold a successful venture? I don't get it.

I'm saying that people would rather work for someone who has experience building and selling a successful venture where the employees felt they also gained, vs. working for someone with experience building and selling a venture where the employees were laid off and received little for their trouble.

Case in point: Some time ago up here in Toronto there was a venture founded by someone who had built a company with much talk of going public but one thing led to another and he sold it to a large US conglomerate. Due to the way the terms worked, most of the people with stock options ended up with a few hundred dollars.

As you might expect, the operations were slowly wound down and everything moved to the buyer's head offices state side. People found other work.

One tech manager put it this way: "I got big screen TV money out of the deal, but I wanted house money or at least car money."

He told me this while explaining why he was avoiding calls from head hunters staffing up the founder's new company.

The net-net of what I'm trying to say is that if you are running a smaller start-up, and you might want to do it again, consider making sure that the employees perceive they benefit from the deal and not just the major shareholders.

You make the call.

Re: Microsoft Crosses The Line

#35

Post by giles_bowkett » Tue, Jul 08, 2008, 11:02 PM UTC

I didn't pollute my mind by reading this - I only saw it because of some bug in my TechCrunch-links-screening script - but what on earth could make somebody think that Microsoft crossing the line could be news? That's all they ever do.

Re: Microsoft Crosses The Line

#36

Post by railroadmike » Wed, Jul 09, 2008, 12:41 AM UTC

raganwald wrote: post #2

Microsoft/Ballmer's behaviour has been entirely consistent with their reputation as take-no-prisoners bullies. Bullying is all about destroying and humiliating people. It is all about intimidating a crowd of people by making an example of someone. I seriously doubt anyone, even Microsoft shareholders, are cheering Ballmer on. Actually, I revise this: I especially doubt Microsoft shareholders are cheering Ballmer on.…

Excellent analysis ragan. But I would be even more succinct. Microsoft plus yahoo is still just dumb ol' microsoft and the combination is going to have no more success against Google than microsoft alone or yahoo and microsoft separately.

Microsoft was once king but something called Google came out of nowhere to steal it's thorny crown. When Google loses it's crown it will be from something that comes out of nowhere again.

Get working guys. It could be one of you.