Doug Cutting Leaves Yahoo for Cloudera • Hacker News Board

Re: Doug Cutting Leaves Yahoo for Cloudera

#21

Post by sorme » Tue, Aug 11, 2009, 12:28 PM UTC

JOSHUA!!!!!

The gall. Seriously.

"Thus did Schachter come to believe that the deal was what was best for Del.icio.us. And it's pretty good for him too. If reports of a price north of $30 million are accurate, the acquisition puts his net worth (on paper) at more than $15 million." ( http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/busine... )

Yahoo sets this little brat up for life and he has the audacity to talk about them as a "sausage factory?" Frankly, I think Yahoo has done a good job with Delicious BECAUSE they have tinkered with it so little. And what they HAVE done with the UI is a vast improvement. Remember all the worry when Yahoo bought Flickr? Most Flickr users say it's far better and more stable than ever. I just have problems with his taking the kind of money from this company like he did and then turn around in 4 years and bitch and moan and say he wished he hadn't sold. Does anybody here REALLY believe that? Put him back in his old apartment surviving on Mac 'n Cheese without the luxury home, trips, cars, gifts to family, etc. and see how badly he wished he would never have sold.

Shame, Josh Schachter, shame.

Re: Doug Cutting Leaves Yahoo for Cloudera

#22

Post by pvg » Tue, Aug 11, 2009, 2:34 PM UTC

joshu wrote: post #15

rjurney wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like YDN is pretty meaty. And yes, 'Let Doug do what he wanted and paid him, and gave us Hadoop and Pig with great docs, along with YUI' is a pretty strong contribution. I've never worked there, but if I could work on a cool project - yes, I would. You do sound like you have a unique perspective :) I've always heard nothing but bad things about Yahoo management, and if they acquired my baby and kilt it I'm sur…

I guess. I think the folks that pay Linus or whatever have done more for OS. Sun's opensolaris, too. MySQL, etc too. Just by sheer weight of code. The problem is that the number of cool projects is pretty minimal. They're in duck and cover mode. They'll get pushed to trim employees further and further to stretch the revenues out. I wish I had not sold it to them. The cash and freedom do not even come close; I would r…

Pinboard's hiring, dude! I've got a clever compensation formula I'll email you about...

Re: Doug Cutting Leaves Yahoo for Cloudera

#23

Post by keefe » Tue, Aug 11, 2009, 5:04 PM UTC

SwellJoe wrote: post #19

keefe wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't you work on anything you want now that you have the money? If you hadn't sold and some catastrophe struck you, what then? I'm sitting here counting out months of savings and wondering if I'll be able to build what I want to build before debt and daily life grinds me down.

He wasn't broke before the acquisition. A really successful product means you kinda get to do what you want whether you get an "exit" or not. Sure, the big cashout means you can go on a long vacation or something...but how many of us are in it for a long vacation? If I were to sell my company today, I would be thinking about what my next business would be by tomorrow.

A really successful product is not guaranteed to remain so, but cash remains cash. I speculate that if yahoo was going to get into social bookmarking then if he hadn't sold, they'd have picked up somebody else and the competitive landscape changes drastically. To me, the big cashout means an opportunity to work on bigger projects. The personal financials are of course the most important factor. If I had a few million or a fat trust fund, I agree selling only makes sense if I figure I am getting a very good price.

Re: Doug Cutting Leaves Yahoo for Cloudera

#24

Post by mountaineer » Tue, Aug 11, 2009, 5:31 PM UTC

joshu wrote: post #15

rjurney wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like YDN is pretty meaty. And yes, 'Let Doug do what he wanted and paid him, and gave us Hadoop and Pig with great docs, along with YUI' is a pretty strong contribution. I've never worked there, but if I could work on a cool project - yes, I would. You do sound like you have a unique perspective :) I've always heard nothing but bad things about Yahoo management, and if they acquired my baby and kilt it I'm sur…

I guess. I think the folks that pay Linus or whatever have done more for OS. Sun's opensolaris, too. MySQL, etc too. Just by sheer weight of code. The problem is that the number of cool projects is pretty minimal. They're in duck and cover mode. They'll get pushed to trim employees further and further to stretch the revenues out. I wish I had not sold it to them. The cash and freedom do not even come close; I would r…

Remember that many people do not have either cash and freedom OR a big popular project. While nowhere near the level of Delicious, I had a project acquired, and ended up with neither cash and freedom or a project to work on in the end. But, I'm not ready to say I wish I wouldn't have sold it. It's part of learning and I'll have a different perspective next time around. So, while I know where you're coming from, I'm not going to feel too bad for you ;-). Seems like you'll now nkow what to consider next time.

BTW, I still use Delicious every day, thanks for creating it.

Re: Doug Cutting Leaves Yahoo for Cloudera

#25

Post by claudera » Tue, Aug 11, 2009, 8:01 PM UTC

joshu wrote: post #15

rjurney wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like YDN is pretty meaty. And yes, 'Let Doug do what he wanted and paid him, and gave us Hadoop and Pig with great docs, along with YUI' is a pretty strong contribution. I've never worked there, but if I could work on a cool project - yes, I would. You do sound like you have a unique perspective :) I've always heard nothing but bad things about Yahoo management, and if they acquired my baby and kilt it I'm sur…

I guess. I think the folks that pay Linus or whatever have done more for OS. Sun's opensolaris, too. MySQL, etc too. Just by sheer weight of code. The problem is that the number of cool projects is pretty minimal. They're in duck and cover mode. They'll get pushed to trim employees further and further to stretch the revenues out. I wish I had not sold it to them. The cash and freedom do not even come close; I would r…

There are very interesting and successful proprietary applications out there. A good example is bit.ly, one of my favourites.

Yahoo did not killed Delicious (launched in 2003), Google Reader (2005), FriendFeed (2006), Twitter (2007) and bit.ly did!

Re: Doug Cutting Leaves Yahoo for Cloudera

#26

Post by mikeindustries » Wed, Aug 12, 2009, 12:28 AM UTC

sorme wrote: post #21

JOSHUA!!!!! The gall. Seriously. "Thus did Schachter come to believe that the deal was what was best for Del.icio.us. And it's pretty good for him too. If reports of a price north of $30 million are accurate, the acquisition puts his net worth (on paper) at more than $15 million." ( http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/busine.. . ) Yahoo sets this little brat up for life and he has the audacity to talk about them…

Did you really just call someone you've never met before -- who created a service you seem to enjoy -- a little brat? People who create great products which get acquired do not get "set up" by their acquirer. The cash they earn is often in exchange for giving up full control over the product's destiny. That is what happened here, and you can certainly argue whether or not Delicious is better or worse off for being underneath Yahoo, but it's foolish of you to try and divine how truthful you think Josh is being, merely because you may trade the best thing you've ever created for $15 million.

Re: Doug Cutting Leaves Yahoo for Cloudera

#27

Post by lmorchard » Wed, Aug 12, 2009, 11:29 PM UTC

claudera wrote: post #25

joshu wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess. I think the folks that pay Linus or whatever have done more for OS. Sun's opensolaris, too. MySQL, etc too. Just by sheer weight of code. The problem is that the number of cool projects is pretty minimal. They're in duck and cover mode. They'll get pushed to trim employees further and further to stretch the revenues out. I wish I had not sold it to them. The cash and freedom do not even come close; I would r…

There are very interesting and successful proprietary applications out there. A good example is bit.ly, one of my favourites. Yahoo did not killed Delicious (launched in 2003), Google Reader (2005), FriendFeed (2006), Twitter (2007) and bit.ly did!

Of course that whole time, we on the Delicious team were watching the rise of those apps, thinking "Wouldn't it be cool if we could..." but being told "Maybe, though first you'll need to..."