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

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

#161

Post by drothlis »

lghh wrote: post #122
Noe2097 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious here: what got better in GitHub since the acquisition? It's a genuine question, I'm not being sarcastic, I really don't understand the statement (which seems to be shared by several people here). I honestly can't point out a single thing that was delivered that changed the game for like, 6 years from now if not more (copilot is a nice gadget IMHO but it's not really game changer, is it?). I was actually h…

I have enjoyed using Actions. The GitHub integration into VSCode has been a huge productivity boon for me as well.

Do you mean VSCode’s standard git support, or is there a github plugin specifically? (Just curious if I’m missing out on something!)

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

#162

Post by jokethrowaway »

harel wrote: post #56

I think github got better after Microsoft bought them. They were in some stale rut for a long time before that.

I'd say the opposite.

Reliability went way down after the acquisition.

It feels like we constantly have issues with github, it's becoming as bad as azure.

Actions, Packages and Projects (beta) are nice product ideas but they are a nightmare of DX experience.

You can see they rushed them out to compete with Gitlab.

Also dodgy stuff like Copilot.

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

#163

Post by Noe2097 »

heisenzombie wrote: post #154
Noe2097 wrote: post #112

Dassault Systèmes acquiring Solidworks. Most users don't know that Solidworks, which is well know as a mid level solution for CAD, is actually owned by the French company developing CATIA, which is practically used by every single serious manufacturer in the world (from automotive to aircraft to ship to factory to you name it). The geometric kernel powering these two is now the same, but it wasn't for years. I guess…

That's an unusual example. In my experience, Dassault are horrible to deal with. Their byzantine sales and aggressive legal departments have our company seriously looking to jump ship despite the large moving costs that would entail.

Oh fully agreed; SolidWorks is much more an exception than the norm here.

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

#164

Post by rossdavidh »

balderdash wrote: post #145
rossdavidh wrote: post #81

So, one thing to keep in mind with all of this is that, if it was a small, fast-growing startup that got acquired, there was zero chance of it staying that way even if it did not get acquired. Being small and fast-growing for very long, is by definition impossible. In many cases, when a smaller company gets acquired by a big one, it's because they have hit the point where the founder of the smaller company realizes t…

Yep - it just accelerates what would have happened down the road. In addition to institutionalization (yeah “asking Bob” is not a scalable solution) the other thing is risk skew changes. When you’re a startup in a garage with nothing to lose, who cares about compliance and adhering to laws and regulations (there is very little downside, and you’re a small target). When you’re worth a $1b now you’re a bigger target, a…

Truth; Uber comes to mind.

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

#165

Post by rossdavidh »

waynesonfire wrote: post #133
rossdavidh wrote: post #81

So, one thing to keep in mind with all of this is that, if it was a small, fast-growing startup that got acquired, there was zero chance of it staying that way even if it did not get acquired. Being small and fast-growing for very long, is by definition impossible. In many cases, when a smaller company gets acquired by a big one, it's because they have hit the point where the founder of the smaller company realizes t…

This is such bs. Why do you have to grow so fast? Wtf. Stop taking loans and having to sell your soul to get out.

Well you don't _have_ to grow fast. But a slow-growing or not-growing company also has a very different feel. Fast-growing companies have lots of room for growth for everyone who works there, because there are new positions and new responsibilities opening up all the time. Slow-growing companies have less of that, so somebody else has to leave or die before you get a chance to move up. Sometimes, this is still better than the problems of fast growth, but it is a tradeoff.

Also, if you took VC money to start the company in the first place, then you may require fast growth in order to offer some prospect of a return to the people who invested with you. Similarly, if you maxed out your credit cards and took loans from family to get going, you need/want to grow fast to pay that back. Not every small company is in that situation, but many of them are.

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

#166

Post by stevage »

iainctduncan wrote: post #109

(background: I work in tech mergers and acquisitions for a company that does pre-acquisition diligence.) It is worth noting that, most of the time, the things that are so wonderful about working at the small company are fun for all the same reasons that they aren't sustainable. Most startups are not cash positive - they don't make money, they just lose money more slowly than they get investment (by selling off bits o…

How do Google and Facebook etc manage it then?

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

#167

Post by lghh »

drothlis wrote: post #161
lghh wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have enjoyed using Actions. The GitHub integration into VSCode has been a huge productivity boon for me as well.

Do you mean VSCode’s standard git support, or is there a git hub plugin specifically? (Just curious if I’m missing out on something!)

There's a Github plugin. I am specifically referring to that. I use it to do code reviews. Being able to see the changes in-line in my editor helps give me a bit of context to the changes because it's easier to see the surrounding code, click into functions being used, etc.

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

#168

Post by EricE »

PAPPPmAc wrote: post #149
rvense wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OS X was an upgraded NeXTStep (including an all-new GUI and printing subsystem) with the addition of two ways of running old Mac applications: Classic mode, which was a full OS9 environment running under hardware virtualization, and the Carbon APIs, which were a set of upgraded but mostly-compatible C/C++ APIs that allowed Mac applications from the last decade and a half to be carried forward. These APIs survived for…

Carbon itself was a concession, if you look at the earlier Rhapsody and OS X Server releases, it was pretty clear that they were planning on using the "Yellow Box" environment (Basically OpenStep) as the primary system, with the "Blue Box" emulation layer as the only way to run Classic software. Then a revolt from developers (apparently especially Adobe and Microsoft) and the reality of how much a Display PostScript…

Adobe in particular is why 64 bit carbon didn't happen. Apple had to drag them kicking and screaming out of Carbon into the yellow box.

Fun times!

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

#169

Post by warrenm »

hestefisk wrote: post #136

From the outside, IBM/RH merger looks like IBM tried to keep culture and organisation intact. Anyone from the inside who can comment?

From what I know of RH folks (across the spectrum) who stuck around through and after the acquisition ... so far IBM hasn't mucked it up too much

The risk of someone walking out and starting Orange Sombrero Linux with 99% of RH's code (ie all the OSS stuff) seems to be keeping IBM in check (for now...)

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

#170

Post by harel »

smcleod wrote: post #124
harel wrote: post #56

I think github got better after Microsoft bought them. They were in some stale rut for a long time before that.

I couldn't disagree more, GitHub has had significantly more outages - especially transient ones and is now focused on smashing out sales driven features rather stability and core functionality.

The "Internet" had significantly more outages recently, and a lot was to do with Cloudflare. Either way, in the grand scheme of things, an outage is a sliver of a percent of the time, while new features are (almost maybe probably) for ever.
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