Arc had privacy concerns. How will those concerns be addressed by Atlassian, given they handle very sensitive data?
Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company
221–230 of 528 posts
Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company
#222$610M, all cash??? How were they worth that much... all they seemed to ever do was rebrand
It would have made sense if they had a large user base or groundbreaking tech, but they are just a Chrome fork with a very niche set of users.
Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company
#223I’m not sure whether I find it more worrisome or fascinating that we live in a world where a company that, as far as I know, has never generated a single dollar in revenue has managed to exist for over five years, employ more than 100 people, and still get acquired for this amount. This isn’t criticism or sarcasm — I’m genuinely impressed, but also very curious about the rationale behind it.
Agreed, to make it even more interesting Browser Company discontinued Arc earlier this year. So not only did they do all of the things OP listed, but also didn't have a current product when acquired.
Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company
#224I’m not sure whether I find it more worrisome or fascinating that we live in a world where a company that, as far as I know, has never generated a single dollar in revenue has managed to exist for over five years, employ more than 100 people, and still get acquired for this amount. This isn’t criticism or sarcasm — I’m genuinely impressed, but also very curious about the rationale behind it.
VCs are not allowed to lose.
Atlassian invested in their series A. Atlassian decided Atlassian isn't allowed to lose
Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company
#225I’m not sure whether I find it more worrisome or fascinating that we live in a world where a company that, as far as I know, has never generated a single dollar in revenue has managed to exist for over five years, employ more than 100 people, and still get acquired for this amount. This isn’t criticism or sarcasm — I’m genuinely impressed, but also very curious about the rationale behind it.
Agreed, to make it even more interesting Browser Company discontinued Arc earlier this year. So not only did they do all of the things OP listed, but also didn't have a current product when acquired.
Where can I read about this? It still gets regular updates and is front and center on the browser company website
Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company
#226They messed with Dia thing.
Arc had a clear value proposition, a better browser for power users. I'd pay for that, mostly because the browser itself, but also because they had pretty straightforward approaches on their communication, how small things work, how bad features should be removed and so on...
I never understood Dia. ofc I downloaded Dia and tried using it a while, but never clicked on the agent bar. They told somewhere sometime that they were seeking a bigger user base. Dia definitely is not that place. A browser powered by AI definitely is nothing something beyond the geek/early adopter crew.
Things become worse when we think about how they handled this whole situation. Sometimes shady, sometimes with a lot of arrogance and always shunning off their loyal users.
We don't have the whole information, of course the team and maybe investors know better in details what happened, but definitely things weren't going well. The recent tweet from the design guy cheering up the side bar is almost a suffocated scream from the team imo.
From the company journey perspective that's a depressing way to have an exit. Wish them the best, but I'm deleting any traces of TBC from my computer.
Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company
#227I’m not sure whether I find it more worrisome or fascinating that we live in a world where a company that, as far as I know, has never generated a single dollar in revenue has managed to exist for over five years, employ more than 100 people, and still get acquired for this amount. This isn’t criticism or sarcasm — I’m genuinely impressed, but also very curious about the rationale behind it.
Atlassian essentially got a big fairly locked-in userbase that they will now squeeze using their existing proven mechanisms. Oh and they probably got a few free competent developers without needing to go through an expensive hiring process. All told, probably worth 610M.
are they locked-in tho? People loved Arc, but they killed it. Doesn't seem the reviews of Dia are all that great.
Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed, to make it even more interesting Browser Company discontinued Arc earlier this year. So not only did they do all of the things OP listed, but also didn't have a current product when acquired.
Where can I read about this? It still gets regular updates and is front and center on the browser company website
This was their blog post back in May
https://browsercompany.substack.com/p/letter-to-arc-members-...
Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company
#229Earlier quoted context omitted.
From my perspective, as a user, the big thing is compartmentalization. Arc breaks the traditional paradigm of "bookmarks", using "Spaces" and "Pins" instead. "Pins" are the closest to bookmarks. They appear at the top of the sidebar, and can be organized into folders. They differ from bookmarks in that they are pretty much native tabs that are unloaded until you open them. "Spaces" are sets of tabs, both pinned and n…
Zen browser has spaces
And more importantly Edge.
Re: Atlassian is acquiring The Browser Company
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed, to make it even more interesting Browser Company discontinued Arc earlier this year. So not only did they do all of the things OP listed, but also didn't have a current product when acquired.
Where can I read about this? It still gets regular updates and is front and center on the browser company website
It was put on maintenance mode with minimal security updates to favour the development of their newer product Dia (AI browser).