I love ZenCoder. The product is awesome and their company culture/fast dev cycle/docs/api is one we should all try to mimic (i.e, the CEO gets onto sales calls and answers tech questions. WHAT!?).
I know that they are promising not to pull a Sparrow, but with all of the aqui-hires lately- I'm scared. Please don't make me go back to a homebrew ffmpeg setup- there aren't many good competitors in this space!
Brightcove Acquires Zencoder (YC W10)
21–30 of 38 posts
Re: Brightcove Acquires Zencoder (YC W10)
#22Congrats Jon!
Re: Brightcove Acquires Zencoder (YC W10)
#23I love ZenCoder. The product is awesome and their company culture/fast dev cycle/docs/api is one we should all try to mimic (i.e, the CEO gets onto sales calls and answers tech questions. WHAT!?). I know that they are promising not to pull a Sparrow, but with all of the aqui-hires lately- I'm scared. Please don't make me go back to a homebrew ffmpeg setup- there aren't many good competitors in this space!
Hi Steve - we have express plans to _not_ shut down or make you go back to a homebrew setup. This isn't an aqui-hire; Brightcove is getting into the encoding API market. Hope to work with you for many years to come.
Re: Brightcove Acquires Zencoder (YC W10)
#24I love ZenCoder. The product is awesome and their company culture/fast dev cycle/docs/api is one we should all try to mimic (i.e, the CEO gets onto sales calls and answers tech questions. WHAT!?). I know that they are promising not to pull a Sparrow, but with all of the aqui-hires lately- I'm scared. Please don't make me go back to a homebrew ffmpeg setup- there aren't many good competitors in this space!
Keeping ZenCoder running is right in line with BrightCove's core business. I can't foresee them shutting it down.
Re: Brightcove Acquires Zencoder (YC W10)
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Zencoder is acquired by BrightCove, a publicly traded company (NASDAQ:BCOV), no doubt for stock and cash. (I've not seen specific terms of the deal). Given they are publicly traded their stock can be converted into cash. When my startup was acquired by a publicly traded company it was great for the employees because their vested stock turned into publicly tradeable shares overnight. Sort of like an IPO if you squint…
> When my startup was acquired by a publicly traded company it was great for the employees because their vested stock turned into publicly tradeable shares overnight. Sort of like an IPO if you squint :-) It is sort of an IPO if you squint. With all the potential downside: I was an investor in a startup that was acquired by a publicly traded company. The deal was cash+stock, for a ~3X return on investment after a yea…
This is why you excise your options early.
Re: Brightcove Acquires Zencoder (YC W10)
#26Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When my startup was acquired by a publicly traded company it was great for the employees because their vested stock turned into publicly tradeable shares overnight. Sort of like an IPO if you squint :-) It is sort of an IPO if you squint. With all the potential downside: I was an investor in a startup that was acquired by a publicly traded company. The deal was cash+stock, for a ~3X return on investment after a yea…
This is why you excise your options early.
Heh, I'm sure no pun was intended but I did chuckle, since to 'excise' is to remove whereas 'exercise' would be to take possession of. As someone who struggles daily with this type of typo I feel that pain. The humor comes from the fact that the sentence works both ways.
Re: Brightcove Acquires Zencoder (YC W10)
#27I love ZenCoder. The product is awesome and their company culture/fast dev cycle/docs/api is one we should all try to mimic (i.e, the CEO gets onto sales calls and answers tech questions. WHAT!?). I know that they are promising not to pull a Sparrow, but with all of the aqui-hires lately- I'm scared. Please don't make me go back to a homebrew ffmpeg setup- there aren't many good competitors in this space!
Hi Steve - we have express plans to _not_ shut down or make you go back to a homebrew setup. This isn't an aqui-hire; Brightcove is getting into the encoding API market. Hope to work with you for many years to come.
Congrats Jon! Zencoder is killing it! Plz keep the service up! Both videolla and Virool are proud customers!
Re: Brightcove Acquires Zencoder (YC W10)
#28Congrats to Jon, Brandon and Steve! Lots of hard work and dedication making a great team and product.
Re: Brightcove Acquires Zencoder (YC W10)
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
> When my startup was acquired by a publicly traded company it was great for the employees because their vested stock turned into publicly tradeable shares overnight. Sort of like an IPO if you squint :-) It is sort of an IPO if you squint. With all the potential downside: I was an investor in a startup that was acquired by a publicly traded company. The deal was cash+stock, for a ~3X return on investment after a yea…
This is why you excise your options early.
Except .. there were no options involved. And even if there were, exercising earlier or later makes no difference.
Since shares of the acquired company were exchanged for shares of the acquiring company, the IRS considers this a tax event. Regardless of whether you have already exercised or not, as far as taxes are concerned, it is equivalent to the case in which you sold the acquired company's shares, and bought the acquiring companies shares. It also resets the clock on the "long term capital gain" counter. And being a small investor who wasn't driving the deal, there was nothing I could do about it.
(If I were in the driver seat, there is a way out: if the deal falls under the definition of ">80% stock forward triangular merger" or ">50% reverse triangular merger", then there is no tax event. But it rarely ever does - google the requirements)
Your largest expense is taxes.
I like it how all the armchair dealmakers on HN know how to navigate the tax system. Except those who actually tried, that is.
Re: Brightcove Acquires Zencoder (YC W10)
#30Congratulations! Smart engineers doing very well!