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Marissa Mayer will close her old AI startup, sell assets to her new AI startup

techcrunch.com

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Re: Marissa Mayer will close her old AI startup, sell assets to her new AI startup

#11

Post by taeric »

newfocogi wrote: post #5

"Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer is closing the doors on her consumer software startup Sunshine, and is selling the company’s assets to her new AI startup, Dazzle" and "all of Sunshine’s employees will move to the new company". Under what conditions is it better to buy the assets and hire the employees instead of just change the name and product offering of the company? Is it just to get the investors off the cap tabl…

Ostensibly, it is in what you left out of your question? If you can buy the assets, specifically, you can not buy the liabilities.

Obviously, getting some people off of obligation lists is one of them. There could be others?

Re: Marissa Mayer will close her old AI startup, sell assets to her new AI startup

#13

Post by bix6 »

prasadjoglekar wrote: post #8
newfocogi wrote: post #5

"Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer is closing the doors on her consumer software startup Sunshine, and is selling the company’s assets to her new AI startup, Dazzle" and "all of Sunshine’s employees will move to the new company". Under what conditions is it better to buy the assets and hire the employees instead of just change the name and product offering of the company? Is it just to get the investors off the cap tabl…

Clean cap table is quite valuable.

Valuable to new investors. Old investors get hosed. I really struggle with these sorts of situations. She’s presumably doing something similar with the new company so all the old investors who didn’t participate (presuming a pay to play) get hosed. Is that really fair?

Re: Marissa Mayer will close her old AI startup, sell assets to her new AI startup

#14

Post by LightBug1 »

bix6 wrote: post #13
prasadjoglekar wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clean cap table is quite valuable.

Valuable to new investors. Old investors get hosed. I really struggle with these sorts of situations. She’s presumably doing something similar with the new company so all the old investors who didn’t participate (presuming a pay to play) get hosed. Is that really fair?

Sometimes you do the hosing, sometimes you're the one getting hosed

Re: Marissa Mayer will close her old AI startup, sell assets to her new AI startup

#15

Post by mbesto »

prasadjoglekar wrote: post #8
newfocogi wrote: post #5

"Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer is closing the doors on her consumer software startup Sunshine, and is selling the company’s assets to her new AI startup, Dazzle" and "all of Sunshine’s employees will move to the new company". Under what conditions is it better to buy the assets and hire the employees instead of just change the name and product offering of the company? Is it just to get the investors off the cap tabl…

Clean cap table is quite valuable.

Clean cap table and she probably provided a decent amount of the funding for the first startup. It's also more than likely a tax thing here. I don't think people ought to get too obsessed with the contractual details on this one.

Re: Marissa Mayer will close her old AI startup, sell assets to her new AI startup

#17

Post by orionsbelt »

bix6 wrote: post #13
prasadjoglekar wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clean cap table is quite valuable.

Valuable to new investors. Old investors get hosed. I really struggle with these sorts of situations. She’s presumably doing something similar with the new company so all the old investors who didn’t participate (presuming a pay to play) get hosed. Is that really fair?

In my experience, the alternative to a pay to play or similar situation in which the old investors get hosed is the company dying, so they get hosed anyway. The fact is, a messed up cap table or zombie company is not attractive to new investors, so cleaning it up is an unfortunate necessity.

Re: Marissa Mayer will close her old AI startup, sell assets to her new AI startup

#18

Post by pkaye »

bix6 wrote: post #13
prasadjoglekar wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clean cap table is quite valuable.

Valuable to new investors. Old investors get hosed. I really struggle with these sorts of situations. She’s presumably doing something similar with the new company so all the old investors who didn’t participate (presuming a pay to play) get hosed. Is that really fair?

The article says it was largely self funded so maybe she would lose the most.

Re: Marissa Mayer will close her old AI startup, sell assets to her new AI startup

#19

Post by cosmicgadget »

computerphage wrote: post #10

"due to privacy concerns about privacy" This strikes me as a particularly funny typo

Probably wrote "due to concerns about privacy" then realized it should be "due to privacy concerns" and forgot to remove the original bit.

Many such cases.

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