I think there is a space for an disruptive _accelerator_ that completely prohibits this kind of behavior (a.k.a. acquihires), like a make-it-a-big-or-sink-with-it kind of thing, so users (and potential users) would trust more their start-ups knowing that this luxury-garage-sales-of-engineers is not the goal.
Sold just got acquired by Dropbox and closed their company
71–80 of 81 posts
Re: Sold just got acquired by Dropbox and closed their company
#72funny, in the old school economy this would be a failure. oh crap, i couldn't run my company, the business i have built. i have failed my employees, my vision, my customers. all for naught, i got swallowed and now i am an employee. but in web/tech bubble? hooray, i flipped this shit for cash. so long suckas.
This is a failure; is a net negative for their users, those were numerically more than the engineers. But the HN is crowed with the later plus short-term big profits are pompously celebrated by the vapid american culture (and media).
Re: Sold just got acquired by Dropbox and closed their company
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Let me add: " Because of that we're joining $totally_unrelated_product. And damaging the ecosystem that allowed us to get to this point." It bears repeating that every time one of the acquire shutdowns occurs it makes users that much less willing to take a chance on a small startup. Even a shutdown like this that isn't screwing over existing users reminds everyone of the pattern. Hmmm, maybe I should start ending thi…
Let me fix the previous sentence: We started $service pretending to care about solving problem that matters to you so that we could extract from you as much money as possible quickly. I don't believe what startups say anymore. They don't want to solve anything. They want to make something that looks like a solution for long enough that they get piles of money. Maybe it's understandable, but I'd like they'd be more up…
"They don't want to solve anything. They want to make something that looks like a solution for long enough that they get piles of money."
But if they don't offer value to their customers, how are they going to "get piles of money" in the first place?
Re: Sold just got acquired by Dropbox and closed their company
#74This is how this letter reads to me: Woohoo, we got acquired. Thanks a lot for bringing our valuation up buy trusting us. We started $service to solve a problem that matters to you. Because of that we're joining $totally_unrelated_product. Thanks for all the fish.
Most likely they would have gone out of business either way because nobody is going to do an acqui-hire deal if their company had plenty of funding or was actually profitable. If I was working somewhere, I'd rather the founders managed to finagle an acqui-hire rather fire everybody. You're right, though, there's nothing great about it for the users.
Not necessarily.
They could have been not profitable enough, for themselves or their investors, especially if they got a rich enough acqui-hire offer. Or however profitable their efforts, if they couldn't raise enough money to properly peruse them. They could be facing more work of a type they don't like or weren't good enough at (including hiring the necessary talent), e.g. marketing and sales, and preferred the maximum pivot possible.
Re: Sold just got acquired by Dropbox and closed their company
#75funny, in the old school economy this would be a failure. oh crap, i couldn't run my company, the business i have built. i have failed my employees, my vision, my customers. all for naught, i got swallowed and now i am an employee. but in web/tech bubble? hooray, i flipped this shit for cash. so long suckas.
One caveat to this is with the closing of the IPO exit, one either has to be very successful or get acquired to exit. And your investors could be demanding some sort of exit, they're generally not in the game for your employees, vision or customers.
Arranging and exit for investors or founders can be extremely hard; I watched my father do that several times in the period when IPOs were still possible.
Re: Sold just got acquired by Dropbox and closed their company
#76The opening line follows the boilerplate trend of acquisition posts. Being acqui-hired is not something that you should be celebrating with your users... PERIOD. (On a side note, I'm genuinely happy for you all. Getting paid isn't a negative. It's a huge opportunity, but don't patronise your users). "Yey us. :D We're super excited to announce we got acquired. High-five... too slow... Now go f* yourselves." It's incre…
Boiler plates:
"You're all very talented and deserve success" - To staff when you are making staff redundant and/or shutting the company.
"We're super excited we got acquired" - When you're shutting down your service and choosing to exit via acqui-hire to save face.
A catalogue of such boilerplates might be quite insightful to the people who are consuming them and at the same time could help startups out who are in dire need of copy for the right occasion.
Re: Sold just got acquired by Dropbox and closed their company
#77Sold sold. Nice pun :)
Sold sold Sold.
Re: Sold just got acquired by Dropbox and closed their company
#78funny, in the old school economy this would be a failure. oh crap, i couldn't run my company, the business i have built. i have failed my employees, my vision, my customers. all for naught, i got swallowed and now i am an employee. but in web/tech bubble? hooray, i flipped this shit for cash. so long suckas.
Can I add this as a quote to my email signature? :)
Re: Sold just got acquired by Dropbox and closed their company
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sorry, but I do not fully understand your comment. "It could disappear tomorrow" ? Sold has written on their blog that they are shutting down their company..
As in, reading about ever increasing numbers of these sorts of acquisitions makes us weary of using products from these small starups since they can get acquired and shut down their service suddenly, much like how we need to be wary of using Google products and APIs these days since they could be shut down suddenly.
That was always true, even before the startup craze. This is specially true for small companies, but sometimes, they are the ones who can provide the most value.
Also, it's not like if Microsoft was shutting down. You'll be deprived of a couple of products, at most.
Re: Sold just got acquired by Dropbox and closed their company
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Most likely they would have gone out of business either way because nobody is going to do an acqui-hire deal if their company had plenty of funding or was actually profitable. If I was working somewhere, I'd rather the founders managed to finagle an acqui-hire rather fire everybody. You're right, though, there's nothing great about it for the users.
Not necessarily. They could have been not profitable enough, for themselves or their investors, especially if they got a rich enough acqui-hire offer. Or however profitable their efforts, if they couldn't raise enough money to properly peruse them. They could be facing more work of a type they don't like or weren't good enough at (including hiring the necessary talent), e.g. marketing and sales, and preferred the max…
Well, those are all just variations of either not being a successful, profitable company or the founders simply not caring anymore. The end result would still likely be the same for the users.