Ask HN: Examples of large acquisitions that did not ruin the acquired company?

By "ruin" I mean the less tangible parts of the smaller company, such as the culture, the enthusiasm and spirit, the flexibility, the overall happiness.

Having now been in two medium-sized companies that have been acquired by large, public firms, I find that everything we enjoyed is gone. Perks slowly disappear; meetings, trainings, and general wastes of time increase; productivity slows; engineers become demoralized; processes grind through bureaucracy. As I understand it, this is typical.

What are some examples where acquisitions like this have happened and the smaller company wasn't essentially destroyed?

This sounds more like small company vs big company culture, rather than specifically the effects of acquisition. Some folks are much happier at a small, nimble company. Some folks like the stability and predictability of a larger company. Sounds like you're in the former camp.

There are cases where the acquired company is left to run more-or-less independently, and its stock is just owned (or majority-owned) by the acquirer. But that's probably the exception rather than the rule. Usually, if you get acquired, you're now an employee of Big Co.

Instagram ($1 billion), WhatsApp ($19 billion)

>I find that everything we enjoyed is gone. Perks slowly disappear; meetings, trainings, and general wastes of time increase; productivity slows; engineers become demoralized; processes grind through bureaucracy. As I understand it, this is typical.

The first time I was in a company that got acquired, this happened. Then it got acquired again by an even bigger fish and it didn't really happen because it already sucked after the first time.

The second company that got acquired it also happened. Usually the suck starts after a year when managers try to increase their bonuses by finding "synergies," which really means cutting employees through consolidation and adding a bunch of unnecessary friction to the development process.

The lesson I've learned is if you get acquired, you've got about a year to get out or you will be miserable if you aren't the big-co type. I made the mistake of staying too long both times it's happened to me.

To answer your question, I've never been at a company that got acquired and it was better for me.

I like the example, but can you say that NeXT was a large acquisition for Apple? How big was NeXT compared to Apple? Does size matter in this analysis? I believe so. I don't know much about this particular acquisition, but I always assumed that buying NeXT was the price to get Jobs back.