Some would say Facebook won. I am convinced that Facebook has a quiet strategy of driving up Google payroll costs.
Winning A Bidding War With Facebook, Google Picks Up The Entire Milk Team
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Re: Winning A Bidding War With Facebook, Google Picks Up The Entire Milk Team
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
> quite a price for some gifted people! Every time I saw this happen in the 90s the result was the same: Small team shows up in big company after big $$, gets frustrated with big company BS, doesn't really care and runs down the game clock until vesting is nearly complete, leaves without fanfare. I'm sure there must be counter examples, please let me know some if you have them.
Andy Rubin and the Android team had a pretty big impact on Google.
That was one of few acquisitions were Google actually wanted the product, and needed it badly. Mobile was Google's main growth area for years, until the social black hole opened last year or so.
Re: Winning A Bidding War With Facebook, Google Picks Up The Entire Milk Team
#63Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's just incredible. Milk made one application , gave it away for free, summarily shut it down, and sold for $15 - $30 million. I understand these guys are very talented, and that Google was buying the talent more than the product, but that's quite a price for some gifted people!
Yep...why go through the normal interview process to work at Google when you can get acqui-hired, get paid the same, but get a million-dollar "signing bonus"?
Milk was a rather quick flip, but if you consider a more average 4 year run to acquisition, and also consider the risk factor, isn't so much obviously better than just getting a job with Google salary and stock from the start.
Re: Winning A Bidding War With Facebook, Google Picks Up The Entire Milk Team
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's just incredible. Milk made one application , gave it away for free, summarily shut it down, and sold for $15 - $30 million. I understand these guys are very talented, and that Google was buying the talent more than the product, but that's quite a price for some gifted people!
So I heard this hundred times before and while it feels like Google (in this example) is making mistake, perhaps the second bottom here is that they wanted to shut down a competitor (at some field) and the nice way of doing it is to acquire. Then Google won't care if they find themselves behind gold cage of Google or not. They may leave or whatever. I don't think dropping $30MM is a big problem for Google either. For…
0.1% of Google's capitalization just to knock out 15 people is not a sustainable strategy.
Re: Winning A Bidding War With Facebook, Google Picks Up The Entire Milk Team
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Use crunchbase for the data.
Of course! I was thinking LinkedIn but not all founders keep that updated or even use it. Should've thought about Crunchbase sooner. Other than the creepiness aspect it'd be kinda fun.
This is a very interesting idea. I could imagine a website that purposely copies CrunchBase's look and feel. Players create a startup company with a roster of founders to fill the usual CxO roles. Players score points for every venture round their company wins, acquisition, and (if you're lucky) IPO. :)
Re: Winning A Bidding War With Facebook, Google Picks Up The Entire Milk Team
#66Forgive me for not knowing this, but when an acquisition like this happens that is solely for the talent, do the developers themselves get any part of those millions, or does it all simply go to the company owner? If it does all go to the owner, what would stop the developers from banding together and leaving all at once so they could pick up those millions directly, instead?
Usually: millions to the investors and founders for their stock. Employee stock will be worth little due to investor preferences. The acquirer will pay hundreds of thousands to retain a few "key employees", and tens of thousands to the ordinary developers (similar to what they'd get as a hiring bonus). This is why it doesn't make sense to be a startup employee. Your question about why developers can't capture more of…
You seem to be assuming a gargantuan preference in this case. I thought just 1x to 2x was the max these days.
Re: Winning A Bidding War With Facebook, Google Picks Up The Entire Milk Team
#67$2-4M/person, just for the people. Boy does this sound like the telecom bubble, and the internet bubble before that. The music is playing, find a chair.
No. Suppose these 8 guys are paid $150k a year on average. Engineers, good ones at least, bring in more than they cost. In some cases like Instagram and Facebook, the ratio of users to engineers is in the millions. Google is similar. When you also bring into account the caché of someone like Rose, the lifetime earnings from that team probably well exceeds what was spent to aquire them.
>When you also bring into account the caché of someone like Rose
Caché with whom exactly?
Re: Winning A Bidding War With Facebook, Google Picks Up The Entire Milk Team
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
Usually: millions to the investors and founders for their stock. Employee stock will be worth little due to investor preferences. The acquirer will pay hundreds of thousands to retain a few "key employees", and tens of thousands to the ordinary developers (similar to what they'd get as a hiring bonus). This is why it doesn't make sense to be a startup employee. Your question about why developers can't capture more of…
You seem to be assuming a gargantuan preference in this case. I thought just 1x to 2x was the max these days.
He's right about it being historically the case that being a startup employee is a bad gig.
I honestly think the value proposition for startup employees has to come down to risk appetite, the quality of the team you're working with, and getting to work on interesting problems.
Any kind of pure economic calculus that properly accounts for risk is going to favor established companies if you're good at the career game.
Re: Winning A Bidding War With Facebook, Google Picks Up The Entire Milk Team
#69Earlier quoted context omitted.
No. Suppose these 8 guys are paid $150k a year on average. Engineers, good ones at least, bring in more than they cost. In some cases like Instagram and Facebook, the ratio of users to engineers is in the millions. Google is similar. When you also bring into account the caché of someone like Rose, the lifetime earnings from that team probably well exceeds what was spent to aquire them.
All employees should bring in more than they cost. Even the fry guy at McDonalds. Otherwise why would you employ them?
I'm sure there are a few people that Google employs "Because awesome." The self-driving cars thing comes to mind, though I'm sure that could be explained by giving people another hour every day to sit on the internet looking at ads.
Re: Winning A Bidding War With Facebook, Google Picks Up The Entire Milk Team
#70Earlier quoted context omitted.
Of course! I was thinking LinkedIn but not all founders keep that updated or even use it. Should've thought about Crunchbase sooner. Other than the creepiness aspect it'd be kinda fun.
This is a very interesting idea. I could imagine a website that purposely copies CrunchBase's look and feel. Players create a startup company with a roster of founders to fill the usual CxO roles. Players score points for every venture round their company wins, acquisition, and (if you're lucky) IPO. :)
I wanna play a patent troll and sue Microsoft for "a method a button to call a function when clicked".