An acquisition is always a failure • Hacker News Board

Re: An acquisition is always a failure

#111

Post by mindcrime » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 3:26 PM UTC

bambax wrote: post #82

mindcrime wrote: post #3

No, no, a thousand times no. This is complete bullshit. I'm sorry, but you lost me at: The proper ambition for a tech entrepreneur should be to join the ranks of the great tech companies, or, at least, to create a profitable, independent company beloved by employees, customers, and shareholders. Nobody, not you, not my mom or dad, not "God", not Linus Torvalds, not Bill Gates, not the Queen of England, not the Dali L…

> The proper ambition for a tech entrepreneur > NOBODY has any standing to tell me what my "proper ambition is." Nobody is telling you what YOU should do or not do as a human being; I think the debate is about the meaning of words. If you buy a piano and proceed to destroy it with a chainsaw, you can certainly do that. But you don't get to call it "playing the piano" or "composing" (although nowadays it may be consid…

Nobody is telling you what YOU should do or not do as a human being;

But the author of TFA did. He made a blanket assertion about what the "proper ambition of a tech entrepreneur" ought to be.

If you buy a piano and proceed to destroy it with a chainsaw, you can certainly do that. But you don't get to call it "playing the piano" or "composing" (although nowadays it may be considered some kind of "art").

I agree, 100%. But I don't see how that's even remotely analogous to the point about the author of TFA mandating what a tech entrepreneur's ambition ought to be.

Re: An acquisition is always a failure

#112

Post by mindcrime » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 3:40 PM UTC

jlodwick wrote: post #61

mindcrime wrote: post #3

No, no, a thousand times no. This is complete bullshit. I'm sorry, but you lost me at: The proper ambition for a tech entrepreneur should be to join the ranks of the great tech companies, or, at least, to create a profitable, independent company beloved by employees, customers, and shareholders. Nobody, not you, not my mom or dad, not "God", not Linus Torvalds, not Bill Gates, not the Queen of England, not the Dali L…

> You don't know me, my life, my past, my future, my dreams, my fears, my hopes, my goals or a goddamned other thing about me. True, but I know about the potential of companies, and failing to reach that potential is a form of failure.

True, but I know about the potential of companies, and failing to reach that potential is a form of failure.

So you know all about the ultimate potential of every single company out there, formed and as-yet-unformed? Dude, if you're that prescient, forget this entrepreneurial thing and just buy lottery tickets, or go to the horse tracks.

All joking aside, I don't completely disagree with "True, but I know about the potential of companies, and failing to reach that potential is a form of failure", but I do disagree that you have any standing to mandate what everyone else should have as goals, or what their "success criteria" are.

I suppose if one were looking at it from the point of view of "the success of the company" as opposed to "the success of the founders" I could be more sympathetic to your position, but I didn't see anything in TFA that strongly suggested that that's where you were coming from.

Re: An acquisition is always a failure

#113

Post by mindcrime » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 3:53 PM UTC

jlodwick wrote: post #58

zem wrote: post #18

even neglecting the money aspect entirely, this is bullshit. as a hacker, i want to build things. not "implement a vision", just build something that is useful to someone. if some larger company sees the thing i built and says "wow, this is exactly what we need to fill this gap in our product/service/lineup" and acquires my creation (with or without including me to continue developing it), i would consider that a res…

Maybe it wasn't clear from the article, but I was talking about the acquisition of a company, not a product. Hackers, and SV people in general, tend not to distinguish between the two, as many "startup companies" are actually just attempts to commercialize a single product idea. The potential for a company is orders of magnitude greater, because a company can create endless products. If you're talented enough to buil…

The potential for a company is orders of magnitude greater, because a company can create endless products. If you're talented enough to build things that are useful to people, why not found a single legal entity that creates many things, mitigating per-thing risk and exploiting countless economies of scale?

Now that I totally agree with. And that's one of our goals at Fogbeam Labs. I'm absolutely down with the idea of building a large, sustainable, profitable company that branches out into many fields. I've joked with people that our goal is to be "the next Red Hat", but in a lot of ways, I could say that we want to be "the next IBM" or "the next GE" and it would be more on point.

The big part of TFA that I disagree with is the part where you presume to tell entrepreneurs what their ambition ought to be. That and what came off to me as a judgemental tone, but that probably had a lot to do with the title.

Re: An acquisition is always a failure

#114

Post by calinet6 » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 5:49 PM UTC

Screw all y'all, I love this article. It's a sequence of true statements with a hard to swallow and idealistic conclusion, but it's absolutely right.

The only upside to an acquisition is money. Does that often make it the right, logical choice? Of course. Put that aside.

Once you're acquired by a larger more beaurocratic organization, your company dies (perhaps quickly, perhaps slowly), your projects flounder or become administratively managed, your ability to innovate quickly goes away. In short, your dream dies.

His personal accounts of this happening are on the money and are not uncommon effects.

Facebook is a grand counterexample. Zuckerberg didn't sell out when the company was young and he was offered ridiculous buyouts because facebook wouldn't exist today in the same way if he had. The dream would have been killed. Far-fetched example, but maybe true.

Of course it's important to think about reality, of course you have to look at the real world too; of course of course of course. No one can deny you that perspective.

But just maybe, let all that go for one second, and think from an idealistic perspective. Be a dreamer. Don't go after the most logical realistic thing right away. Or at least consider it.

Because we need those companies too. We need companies that can dream, and innovate, and remain independently fueled with a common goal and a vibrant workforce. We need companies that aren't acquired because we need dreamers to think big, so the world can go somewhere better—rather than just somewhere with bigger bank accounts.

Re: An acquisition is always a failure

#115

Post by mindcrime » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 6:49 PM UTC

lmm wrote: post #75

mindcrime wrote: post #3

No, no, a thousand times no. This is complete bullshit. I'm sorry, but you lost me at: The proper ambition for a tech entrepreneur should be to join the ranks of the great tech companies, or, at least, to create a profitable, independent company beloved by employees, customers, and shareholders. Nobody, not you, not my mom or dad, not "God", not Linus Torvalds, not Bill Gates, not the Queen of England, not the Dali L…

>But you know what... maybe I need the money right now to do some things I always wanted to do. Maybe I want to buy my aging mother a new house, and I don't want to wait for a bloody IPO, I want to do it now. Maybe I have a family member who needs special medical care, or - fuck it - maybe I just want to cash out, fly to Scotland, and spend the rest of my life looking for a 6' tall, redheaded supermodel with a Scotti…

Then either you've got into this situation unplanned - a failure of sorts - or you made a terrible choice of strategy for getting the money, and got lucky. There are far more efficient paths to that kind of cash if that's what you want.

That may all be true, but how would any of that support the idea that a 3rd party gets to define the "proper ambition of a tech entrepreneur" is? I'm not arguing for "build to flip" here, or even arguing against the idea that most entrepreneurs would prefer to build for the long-term, and build a sustainable, enduring business... I'm just arguing that no one of us has any real basis for making a claim like "the proper ambition of a tech entrepreneur should be X" and then say "you're a failure because you didn't X".

Re: An acquisition is always a failure

#116

Post by zem » Wed, Apr 03, 2013, 10:47 PM UTC

jlodwick wrote: post #58

zem wrote: post #18

even neglecting the money aspect entirely, this is bullshit. as a hacker, i want to build things. not "implement a vision", just build something that is useful to someone. if some larger company sees the thing i built and says "wow, this is exactly what we need to fill this gap in our product/service/lineup" and acquires my creation (with or without including me to continue developing it), i would consider that a res…

Maybe it wasn't clear from the article, but I was talking about the acquisition of a company, not a product. Hackers, and SV people in general, tend not to distinguish between the two, as many "startup companies" are actually just attempts to commercialize a single product idea. The potential for a company is orders of magnitude greater, because a company can create endless products. If you're talented enough to buil…

okay, that is indeed a good point. one dissenting pov is that the "hollywood model", where a group of people come together, create something, and then dissolve, has produced some great stuff, but i can see how a company can accumulate shared vision and synergy that is lost when it is acquired.

Re: An acquisition is always a failure

#117

Post by yuhong » Thu, Apr 04, 2013, 12:47 AM UTC

michaelpinto wrote: post #2

Jake is brilliant, but this isn't always the case: What about Google's acquisition of Android? What about Apple's acquisition of NeXT? What about Microsoft buying 86-DOS from Seattle Computer Products? What about Lenovo's acquisition of the ThinkPad?

*Lenovo's acquisition of the IBM PC division

Re: An acquisition is always a failure

#118

Post by jlodwick » Thu, Apr 04, 2013, 3:34 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #112

jlodwick wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You don't know me, my life, my past, my future, my dreams, my fears, my hopes, my goals or a goddamned other thing about me. True, but I know about the potential of companies, and failing to reach that potential is a form of failure.

True, but I know about the potential of companies, and failing to reach that potential is a form of failure. So you know all about the ultimate potential of every single company out there, formed and as-yet-unformed? Dude, if you're that prescient, forget this entrepreneurial thing and just buy lottery tickets, or go to the horse tracks. All joking aside, I don't completely disagree with "True, but I know about the p…

> mindcrime 23 hours ago | link | parent

True, but I know about the potential of companies, and failing to reach that potential is a form of failure. So you know all about the ultimate potential of every single company out there, formed and as-yet-unformed? Dude, if you're that prescient, forget this entrepreneurial thing and just buy lottery tickets, or go to the horse tracks. All joking aside, I don't completely disagree with "True, but I know about the potential of companies, and failing to reach that potential is a form of failure", but I do disagree that you have any standing to mandate what everyone else should have as goals, or what their "success criteria" are. I suppose if one were looking at it from the point of view of "the success of the company" as opposed to "the success of the founders" I could be more sympathetic to your position,

I was, and this probably wasn't clear.

It was my first article in a while and there are a number of things I want to do differently in the next one, especially when introducing a contrarian point. I appreciate your feedback.

Re: An acquisition is always a failure

#119

Post by flixic » Fri, Apr 05, 2013, 8:27 PM UTC

mindcrime wrote: post #103

jasonkester wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. This whole article seems like it must be an elaborate HN Karma Lottery, where the first person to read the headline then post the above comment will immediately walk away with 300 points. The conclusion is so obviously false that it doesn't even require saying as much. If somebody ever offers to buy one of my businesses for a price that makes me happy, I'm going to consider that a win. And I'll let the parent…

This whole article seems like it must be an elaborate HN Karma Lottery, where the first person to read the headline then post the above comment will immediately walk away with 300 points. LOL... it's so funny you would say that. I was thinking last night, after this comment started getting upvoted like mad, how pathetic it is that this comment, which is basically just an emotionally charged rant, gets massive upvotes…

It would be very difficult to find, but John Siracusa has said the same thing when asked which of his Hypercritical episodes were his favorites. In short, he explained why he thinks some of his more emotional episodes were very popular, while actually good, well researched weren't, and that people like to like things that inspire discussion and feelings about things they already know and feel something about, not well researched new material. I may be recalling the whole idea bit incorrectly, but there was a similar angle to it as well.