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Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st

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Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st

#21

Post by thezilch »

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #14
hga wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to the article that this comment of mine discusses: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6141238 that's the only way they've found to acquire mobile talent after treating it very badly in times past. Sounds like no matter how energetic the recruiting, people in this field aren't going to jump to them unless they have little or no choice. Key sentence fragment: " In each instance, Yahoo has locked up enginee…

But you always have a choice. Nobody can force you to be acquired... that would be slavery. The seller can require as part of the deal the buyer offer to keep a certain amount of people at a certain pay. Buyer can accept that deal or negotiate. But at the end of the day, every employee has a choice to sign the new contract or not. So anyone who got "locked up" in a 2-4 year contract did so because they felt it was a…

It's a silly "choice;" employees shouldn't be treated with handcuffs. You should be offering them a clear incentive to NOT leave with the cash.

Unfortunately, a lot of developers going to work for a startup have a starry-eyed perspective that the 80hr week is going to pay itself back in droves and without the golden handcuffs. Then reality sets in; the seller doesn't necessarily think much about his employee's outlook -- "dude, you get to work for Yahoo!!!!"

Employees of startups need to be reminded to not take cuts, because the buyout should be gravy; it will likely never come or come with a heavy ball-n-chain.

Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st

#22

Post by hga »

jack-r-abbit wrote: post #20
droithomme wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an interesting point. Onerous contracts signed under duress are not valid in many jurisdictions. Threat of dismissal, the "sign this or else" ultimatum is considered duress. Also, in some countries this scenario would certainly be considered constructive dismissal. As it is though their jobs at the old company don't exist nor does that company and they have not consented to work for the new company, so this is a…

But is that really a "sign this or be dismissed" threat? It seems more like a "Company X is dismissing you. We (Company Y) are offering you a job. Would you like to accept?" type of situation. Which is a lot better than a "Company X is dismissing you. We (Company Y) are not interested in you either. Good day." type of situation.

RIght; in fact, in my last job, it happened in exactly that way. A 2nd or 3rd rate Beltway Bandit got bought by a big foreign company, and because of the latter any units working in national security had to be acquired by a US company, and before the acquisition. My unit was one of those, and we got a document with a bunch of demands, like the last N years worth of non-competes you'd signed, and then in theory they'd hire you. If you didn't sign it, you'd be laid off (in this case there was a successor organization, that wouldn't be true in these aquihires).

Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st

#23

Post by badclient »

hga wrote: post #4
normloman wrote: post #2

Why does yahoo keep buying companies simply to acquire talent? Isn't it just easier to just post a job ad? I don't think there's a shortage of talented programmers working in social media. Someone please explain.

According to the article that this comment of mine discusses: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6141238 that's the only way they've found to acquire mobile talent after treating it very badly in times past. Sounds like no matter how energetic the recruiting, people in this field aren't going to jump to them unless they have little or no choice. Key sentence fragment: " In each instance, Yahoo has locked up enginee…

Has Yahoo ever tried to offer $500,000+ to rockstar mobile devs? Until it tries that, it is lame to argue that it must get talent from deadpooled companies.

Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st

#24

Post by badclient »

orky56 wrote: post #13

For those keeping score, this gives another win for Khosla Ventures, SV Angel, a16z, and First Round. Here's the tally for those who invested in companies that have been acquired by Y! since Mayer took over: CrunchFund - 3 (Stamped, GoPollGo, Tumblr) True Ventures - 3 (OnTheAir, Snip.It, Lexity) Khosla Venture - 3 (Snip.It, Xobni, Rockmelt) SV Angel - 3 (Snip,It, Xobni, Rockmelt) Google Ventures - 2 (Astrid & Stamped…

Other than Tumblr, it seems like all the other acquisitions were of companies that were on their way down.

Edit: Also add Lexity to the list with Tumblr.

Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st

#25

Post by EarthLaunch »

ironchef wrote: post #9
zalew wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

how does buying a team actually work - when the company gets bought from the shareholders, can't the employees tell yahoo to piss off and not sign new contracts? how does the process look like?

Typically the purchasing company will have an idea of who are must keeps, etc. They'll then put financial incentives in place that would typically exceed free market (golden handcuffs...in a manner similar to startup vesting (X amount of shares or X in cashola vesting / released over Y amount of time))

If you're going to joke around about handcuffs, you can't misuse "free market" at the same time. The offer doesn't exceed "free market", it simply exceeds market.

Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st

#26

Post by minimaxir »

orky56 wrote: post #13

For those keeping score, this gives another win for Khosla Ventures, SV Angel, a16z, and First Round. Here's the tally for those who invested in companies that have been acquired by Y! since Mayer took over: CrunchFund - 3 (Stamped, GoPollGo, Tumblr) True Ventures - 3 (OnTheAir, Snip.It, Lexity) Khosla Venture - 3 (Snip.It, Xobni, Rockmelt) SV Angel - 3 (Snip,It, Xobni, Rockmelt) Google Ventures - 2 (Astrid & Stamped…

It should be noted that "win" is a relative term in Rockmelt's case, since there was only a $60-70M return on a $40M investment.

Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st

#27

Post by ForrestN »

Does anyone have any real insight into the strategy behind all of these acquisitions? Apart from blasé speculation about acqui-hiring (for what products?) and supposition that Yahoo executives are merely stupid, I'd be interested to understand the broader pattern. It's a real news story, and something is going on.

There is a strategy. What is it?

Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st

#28

Post by hkmurakami »

johnrob wrote: post #6

60-70 Million for talent? Wow. I suppose Yahoo is trying a novel approach to recruiting: target startup founders/employees, give generous equity offers (via acquisition price) as well as a 'win' on the resume (successful exit). I have to say, it's a pretty compelling offer...

Not sure what level of talent is left at Rockmelt other than their founders. It hadn't been doing well for a long time so I imagine the cream of the crop had already left. (I know one such person who had already left for Google)

Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st

#29

Post by fraserharris »

badclient wrote: post #24
orky56 wrote: post #13

For those keeping score, this gives another win for Khosla Ventures, SV Angel, a16z, and First Round. Here's the tally for those who invested in companies that have been acquired by Y! since Mayer took over: CrunchFund - 3 (Stamped, GoPollGo, Tumblr) True Ventures - 3 (OnTheAir, Snip.It, Lexity) Khosla Venture - 3 (Snip.It, Xobni, Rockmelt) SV Angel - 3 (Snip,It, Xobni, Rockmelt) Google Ventures - 2 (Astrid & Stamped…

Other than Tumblr, it seems like all the other acquisitions were of companies that were on their way down. Edit: Also add Lexity to the list with Tumblr.

Lexity was a rumoured $30 - 40m (AllThindsD) on $6m in funding with the business remaining active.

Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st

#30

Post by chimeracoder »

ForrestN wrote: post #27

Does anyone have any real insight into the strategy behind all of these acquisitions? Apart from blasé speculation about acqui-hiring (for what products?) and supposition that Yahoo executives are merely stupid, I'd be interested to understand the broader pattern. It's a real news story, and something is going on. There is a strategy. What is it?

Rockmelt has (had) a very strong leadership team (founders were very successful in the 90s), and a number of strong engineers.

It seems clear that this is an acquisition for talent, since they're shutting the product down with less than 30 days' notice.

For <$70MM, that could be a relatively cheap acquisition of talent that has proven their ability to make things (if not necessarily proven their ability to make a product that people want to buy - which is where Yahoo's responsibility and vision come into play).

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