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Pulse Joins the LinkedIn Family

blog.pulse.me

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Re: Pulse Joins the LinkedIn Family

#11

Post by nuclear_eclipse »

akavi wrote: post #10
SurfScore wrote: post #9

I love Pulse. They built a great app and I'm really happy for them, so this isn't a critique, but were they really worth 90M? I get that most of it was in stock, but damn. I guess it was more of a team/userbase acquisition, similar to the Dropbox/Mailbox deal. Either way, congrats guys!

Isn't stock == cash when the acquiring company is public?

Assuming a vesting period, that implies much less liquidity from the deal, and very much relies on the longterm value of the stock. IMO, stock later is worth much less than cash now.

Re: Pulse Joins the LinkedIn Family

#13

Post by SurfScore »

nuclear_eclipse wrote: post #11
akavi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't stock == cash when the acquiring company is public?

Assuming a vesting period, that implies much less liquidity from the deal, and very much relies on the longterm value of the stock. IMO, stock later is worth much less than cash now.

Exactly. And stock is typically much cheaper for a company to spend than actual cash.

A perfect example of this was the Facebook-Instagram acquisition. It was right before Facebook had their IPO, so it was much cheaper for them. Ironically, since Facebook's share price dropped so quickly after IPO, that billion dollar valuation ended up being closer to $715M

source -- http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/24/3551872/facebook-instagra...

Re: Pulse Joins the LinkedIn Family

#14

Post by bambax »

I don't understand LinkedIn (anymore).

Their business model seems to be to source candidates to recruiters. This may be good for recruiters, but for candidates? I'm not so sure. It's certainly better to have an overall strong online presence (Twitter / Github (if relevant) / personal blog) than contacts on LinkedIn that don't mean anything.

Groups are full of spam.

The website is incredibly unresponsive.

They bought the excellent IndexTank technology and team a while ago, and promptly shut it down (the tech was open sourced though, which is more than can be said for a lot of acquisitions).

It seems they only keep on living because people are somewhat afraid to delete their profile; but everything inside LinkedIn feels dead.

And now Pulse. Who would go to LinkedIn for news??

Pulse says "The company shares (...) our belief in the power of knowledge and elevated discussion".

Elevated discussion? On LinkedIn? Come on!

Re: Pulse Joins the LinkedIn Family

#15

Post by GuiA »

Congrats to the pulse founders for entering the millionaire club.

Sucks that they have to pretend to be excited about joining LinkedIn and likely suffer there for a few years, but every rose has a thorn.

Re: Pulse Joins the LinkedIn Family

#17

Post by aashaykumar92 »

bambax wrote: post #14

I don't understand LinkedIn (anymore). Their business model seems to be to source candidates to recruiters. This may be good for recruiters, but for candidates? I'm not so sure. It's certainly better to have an overall strong online presence (Twitter / Github (if relevant) / personal blog) than contacts on LinkedIn that don't mean anything. Groups are full of spam. The website is incredibly unresponsive. They bought…

Yeah that quote drives me crazy. LinkedIn already has those news stories at the top of our home pages--I have shared a couple but I have never seen anyone engage in mine nor others' posts. Unless LinkedIn plans to create a forum for news while utilizing Pulse, I don't get that statement from Pulse. But again, they'd be losing to already-popular forums.

More than anything, I just hope LinkedIn doesn't shut Pulse down. It would be a huge loss to many of Pulse's loyal users.

Re: Pulse Joins the LinkedIn Family

#18

Post by hkmurakami »

bambax wrote: post #14

I don't understand LinkedIn (anymore). Their business model seems to be to source candidates to recruiters. This may be good for recruiters, but for candidates? I'm not so sure. It's certainly better to have an overall strong online presence (Twitter / Github (if relevant) / personal blog) than contacts on LinkedIn that don't mean anything. Groups are full of spam. The website is incredibly unresponsive. They bought…

I wonder if that new "articles by supposedly influential people" is what makes Pulse a fit for them.

Re: Pulse Joins the LinkedIn Family

#19

Post by hkmurakami »

nuclear_eclipse wrote: post #11
akavi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't stock == cash when the acquiring company is public?

Assuming a vesting period, that implies much less liquidity from the deal, and very much relies on the longterm value of the stock. IMO, stock later is worth much less than cash now.

For a company like Linkedin which has been on the market for a while, you can buy a bunch of put options. It comes with a cost obviously, but it's a good hedge for an all stock transaction.

IIRC this is what Mark Cuban did when he sold his company to Yahoo!

Re: Pulse Joins the LinkedIn Family

#20

Post by blantonl »

bambax wrote: post #14

I don't understand LinkedIn (anymore). Their business model seems to be to source candidates to recruiters. This may be good for recruiters, but for candidates? I'm not so sure. It's certainly better to have an overall strong online presence (Twitter / Github (if relevant) / personal blog) than contacts on LinkedIn that don't mean anything. Groups are full of spam. The website is incredibly unresponsive. They bought…

It's certainly better to have an overall strong online presence (Twitter / Github (if relevant) / personal blog) than contacts on LinkedIn that don't mean anything.

One important thing to understand is that LinkedIn isn't just populated by tech folks. LinkedIn is a professional social networking platform that caters to all professions. Your Github / twitter feed might be relevant in the tech industry, but that isn't even an item to think about in most other industries.

LinkedIn is one of the only "social" companies that has demonstrated growth in profitability. They are obviously doing something right. They are making money and demonstrating growth. Where are they going wrong?

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