11–20 of 94 posts
yea, that's my biggest fear right there (in terms of raising money). I doubt he walks away with anything after pouring his life into the company for years. I get that they raised $15 million, but to lose your code, company and time is horrible. He ended up being powerless at his own company
"They are now contemplating a few purchase offers. I have no control or say over this process. There’s a lot of politics. I’m a builder, not a politician and I see no point in staying on." The investors poured ~$15m into this company, and the board is now trying to fulfill its fiduciary duty by trying to recoup some of the invested capital. I understand that open-sourcing the code base would be a better outcome for i…
Archive link https://archive.is/sTfCd in case the discussion gets deleted.
$employer had a need for some of the bits of Dgraph that are unfortunately hidden behind a paywall (bits that IMHO should have been in the community version as they were not particularly enterprisey, but hey such is life).
A frustrating conversation with Dgraph sales-droid ensued:
Us: We need access to X/Y/Z features, but on-prem
Droid: But Cloud
Us: Cloud = No-go because X/Y/Z
Droid: But Cloud
Us: Come on mate, I already explained why we cannot do cloud, plus you say on your website on-prem is an option
Droid: One meeelion dollars
Us: GoodbyeTerrible new name though. Outcaste manages to both combine the negative associations of being a reject and the Indian caste system, and permanently remind users of the project's troubled history.
> Unfortunately, Dgraph was always undervalued by investors.
This feels a bit like blaming the investors for why the company failed. To put it bluntly, there's a point at which you raise capital and build on vision. Your early investors and users are taking a giant leap that a. you can execute on the vision and b. customers will one day want to pay you for that vision.
Then there's point at which the rubber hits the road, and either customers pay you money for the thing you built or they don't. If they don't, you need a really convincing story to convince your investors they shouldn't cut their losses. It's a shame the company failed, it seems like they were working on some cool technology. But based on this post it sounds like no one wanted to pay for whatever it was they built.
"They are now contemplating a few purchase offers. I have no control or say over this process. There’s a lot of politics. I’m a builder, not a politician and I see no point in staying on." The investors poured ~$15m into this company, and the board is now trying to fulfill its fiduciary duty by trying to recoup some of the invested capital. I understand that open-sourcing the code base would be a better outcome for i…
A bit of a tangent, but board members (and company officers) do not in general have a specific duty to maximize shareholder profit. They have a duty of care (think carefully about decisions) and a duty of loyalty (act in the best interests of the company as a whole ). Those could lead reasonably to a profit-maximizing decision but it isn't a straight line.
I feel for this person, but there's a line in here I found revealing: > Unfortunately, Dgraph was always undervalued by investors. This feels a bit like blaming the investors for why the company failed. To put it bluntly, there's a point at which you raise capital and build on vision. Your early investors and users are taking a giant leap that a. you can execute on the vision and b. customers will one day want to pay…
It sounds like a version "people didn't like our product as much as we like it, obviously they are wrong".
It seemed neat from the outset but I can definitely see why they might have problems finding paying customers after getting hands-on with it.