Both of Ark's co-founders are Cal grads. Both of Carsabi's co-founders are also Berkeley grads. Seems smart, Carsabi gets to leave their baby with someone they know and trust, and Ark probably got it for a song.
Ark bought Carsabi
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Re: Ark bought Carsabi
#12As someone not in the know, I would love for someone to explain whether the Startups TV show had something to do with this and how "real" is this?
Re: Ark bought Carsabi
#13Initially didn't know what to make of this given how highly I think of Carsabi and how new Ark was. Put the pieces together with the FB aqui-hire http://techcrunch.com/2012/10/01/facebook-acqhires-founders-... and now I think it's probably beneficial for all parties, but not as big of a deal as a full acquisition (by a mile). Love to see Ark pursuing other verticals though!
Slightly OT, but could someone tell me what, exactly, "acq-hire" means? I thought it referred to one company acquiring another purely in order to get access to talent. Facebook did not acquire any Carsabi assets according to the linked TC story, it simply offered the founders jobs. Back in the day, we called that getting "hired." Is there a distinction here (e.g. perhaps some sort of payback to investors or something…
Typically 'acquihire' means the company was purchased solely for the talent. If the company had investors, it means they'll get some of their money back. If it didn't, it might be done anyway to let the founders take their windfall as capital gains instead of ordinary income.
If they were just offered jobs, then it's not an acquihire. It's just a dead startup and some jobs.
Re: Ark bought Carsabi
#14Bummer. I was hoping carsabi would take off. I used them to find my car. It was great. Especially the graph that tells you whether a car is overpriced or underpriced compared to all of the other listings. I used it to negotiate $1,000 off of a $6,000 car at a used car dealer, making them sell it to me for the average private party price. Kelly Blue Book purports to offer a similar price guide, but it is terrible and…
Cargurus.com has a similar feature. You are right...it's a great feature for negotiating price.
Re: Ark bought Carsabi
#15That's surprising given the publicized Facebook acquisition: http://m.techcrunch.com/2012/10/01/facebook-acqhires-founder...
Did you read the article? It says they plan to sell off the carsabi site/service. So, it's not really surprising at all...
Good point -- I remembered the article from October and found it to link it, but didn't re-read it.
Re: Ark bought Carsabi
#16fwiw acquihire means fb gets your investors some money back and you get a decent offer when Craigslist sues you and things go south. as car search is not particularly relevant to social media, we were pretty happy to turn over the IP to Ark as another Cal grad search company and can't wait to see what they do with it.
Re: Ark bought Carsabi
#17fwiw acquihire means fb gets your investors some money back and you get a decent offer when Craigslist sues you and things go south. as car search is not particularly relevant to social media, we were pretty happy to turn over the IP to Ark as another Cal grad search company and can't wait to see what they do with it.