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Talent Acquisitions

marco.org

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Re: Talent Acquisitions

#91

Post by aeturnum »

metafour wrote: post #45
tchock23 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who sold his company last year and is now experiencing life as a salaried employee again, amen to this... Freedom > money in the vast majority of cases.

I have this conversation with others and myself all the time. Money is nice but what is the opportunity cost of that money?

There are also opportunity costs to freedom. Viewing choices as a "freedom v.s. cost" is a pretty common model. I don't think it needs to be approached "freedom lovers" v.s. "money grubbers" dynamic. People have happily made both choices.

Re: Talent Acquisitions

#92

Post by dangrover »

petercooper wrote: post #49
loeschg wrote: post #6

Yeah it's just a tough situation. Even as a developer, I'm pretty sure I'd have trouble turning down a huge paycheck to go work for a reputable company. I've never built anything that's had a huge fan base though. What are ways to show appreciation for a company/product you like aside from buying their product, tweeting an occasional praise, and liking their FB content? Is that enough?

Even as a developer, I'm pretty sure I'd have trouble turning down a huge paycheck to go work for a reputable company. I've never built anything that's had a huge fan base though. The situation when you have built a big fan base or other sort of "attention" asset is that taking a job is surprisingly risky . I had this situation with a potential acquirer. The job was awesome, the company was great, but the goodwill an…

This. I sold out (Etude), worked for a year or so, and now I just have money (not seven figures though). Have been floundering ever since trying to put together the next thing. Having runway kind of makes it worse, even.

Re: Talent Acquisitions

#93

Post by podperson »

jazzychad wrote: post #9

Well, congrats to Marco for having a successful and sustainable business where he has the option and leverage to decide what he wants to do when these offers come knocking. Most startup/bootstrapped companies are not in that position. Most end up failing and winding up with nothing, but there are some that will end up with these talent acquisition situations. Remember, both sides (the acquirers and the acquirees) hav…

Personally, I think that software should be protected by copyright only if its source code is placed in escrow and made available (a) when the copyright expires or (b) when the software ceases to be commercially available / supported (just as you can legally photocopy copyright books and pay a nominal per-page fee if they're out of print).

The purpose of copyright is to provide a limited monopoly in the interest of creating, in the long term, a public good. Without the source code, we never get the public good. Under this proposed law, Sparrow (and other, similar, products) would have to become open source once it was unsupported, or would not be protected by copyright in the first place.

Re: Talent Acquisitions

#94

Post by petercooper »

dangrover wrote: post #92
petercooper wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even as a developer, I'm pretty sure I'd have trouble turning down a huge paycheck to go work for a reputable company. I've never built anything that's had a huge fan base though. The situation when you have built a big fan base or other sort of "attention" asset is that taking a job is surprisingly risky . I had this situation with a potential acquirer. The job was awesome, the company was great, but the goodwill an…

This. I sold out (Etude), worked for a year or so, and now I just have money (not seven figures though). Have been floundering ever since trying to put together the next thing. Having runway kind of makes it worse, even.

Whoa! The music app? I remember seeing that for the first time, had no idea Steinway picked it up. Congratulations man.

I had a similar situation with one of my first businesses. Low six figure acquisition and then.. oh, what do I do now? It took me almost 4 years to figure it out(!) and now I'm back on my feet again. Good luck!

Re: Talent Acquisitions

#95

Post by [deleted] »

jazzychad wrote: post #9

Well, congrats to Marco for having a successful and sustainable business where he has the option and leverage to decide what he wants to do when these offers come knocking. Most startup/bootstrapped companies are not in that position. Most end up failing and winding up with nothing, but there are some that will end up with these talent acquisition situations. Remember, both sides (the acquirers and the acquirees) hav…

[deleted]

Re: Talent Acquisitions

#96

Post by rogerchucker »

Very few people invest in an app hoping that it will stick around - people mostly invest in the service the app provides. Or the service the app enhances (like Sparrow enhancing the Gmail experience). If that app is gone for whatever reason, the market will simply move on to other solutions. Apps are not ecosystems and expecting stickiness is too much wishful thinking.

Re: Talent Acquisitions

#97

Post by rayiner »

drewcrawford wrote: post #88
rayiner wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you paid half that premium to the members of the team, you'd be much more likely to get them all to come over as a bloc than you are by purchasing the company. And you'd have the other half left over for hookers and blow. Unless you value the goodwill or IP of the target company, it makes no sense to buy out the original investors of the target company.

You consider the position of the hirers, but you fail to consider the position of the investors and the founders. Why would they be incentivized to accept this offer? First: why would the investors of a company allow the team to be bought out from under them? A good investor will align the incentives so that the founders are incentivized to exit at the same time as the investor. Second: why would a founder of a succe…

If you want the employees, and not the assets of the company, who cares about the investors and founders? They're not parties to the transaction. How could they stop the team from being "bought out from under them?"

Re: Talent Acquisitions

#98

Post by bcbrown »

podperson wrote: post #93
jazzychad wrote: post #9

Well, congrats to Marco for having a successful and sustainable business where he has the option and leverage to decide what he wants to do when these offers come knocking. Most startup/bootstrapped companies are not in that position. Most end up failing and winding up with nothing, but there are some that will end up with these talent acquisition situations. Remember, both sides (the acquirers and the acquirees) hav…

Personally, I think that software should be protected by copyright only if its source code is placed in escrow and made available (a) when the copyright expires or (b) when the software ceases to be commercially available / supported (just as you can legally photocopy copyright books and pay a nominal per-page fee if they're out of print). The purpose of copyright is to provide a limited monopoly in the interest of c…

I don't think that would work. You don't need copyright protection for closed-source code, because it's closed; no one can see it anyway.

Re: Talent Acquisitions

#99

Post by antr »

This talent acquisitions issue is also fueled by angel investors and VCs telling entrepreneurs that (i) they should not focus on revenues/profit, and (ii) grow fast quickly.

This advice is some of the worst advice to give entrepreneurs, because revenue/profit is fundamental for any company's survival, and growth does not translate to long-term success.

Then again, investors are in a constant conflict of interest with owning a piece of a long-term profitable businesses, and their expertise is not close to knowing how to manage a profitable business. Having said that, VCs are good at flipping startups to cash-rich companies, who seem to care little on value dilution. How many acquired companies have Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL, New Corp, etc shut down?

Which makes me think: what is the net value of Venture Capital flips to the economy?

Re: Talent Acquisitions

#100

Post by wmf »

bcbrown wrote: post #98
podperson wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I think that software should be protected by copyright only if its source code is placed in escrow and made available (a) when the copyright expires or (b) when the software ceases to be commercially available / supported (just as you can legally photocopy copyright books and pay a nominal per-page fee if they're out of print). The purpose of copyright is to provide a limited monopoly in the interest of c…

I don't think that would work. You don't need copyright protection for closed-source code, because it's closed; no one can see it anyway.

I think podperson is talking about copyright protection for closed-source binaries.
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