Apple buys a company every three to four weeks • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#121

Post by biztos » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 7:39 AM UTC

humbledrone wrote: post #112

biztos wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> do have to interview to remain employed Would that be a full-on interview as if they were applying for a job, or just some kind of "cultural fit" screening? It seems contradictory to me: if the hire is important enough to spend a lot of money on (even via an earn-out) then why alienate them with uncertainty about the offer? I guess the assumption is they don't have a better offer? But if a few key employees get tog…

It varies between no interview at all, and a full interview exactly like a new hire. Both are done. Interviews are more common these days, because if they're skipped, existing employees may resent the acquihire folks for not having to jump through the same hoops. This is another reason for the vesting payouts for employees. If there wasn't some reward, and you had to do a full interview, why not just interview somewh…

> existing employees may resent the acquihire folks for not having to jump through the same hoops

I guess that makes sense, but it’s also a reason to view the hoops as less of tech screen and more of a hazing ritual.

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#122

Post by WanderPanda » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 7:46 AM UTC

internet2000 wrote: post #63

qbasic_forever wrote: post #9

So ~15 companies a year? That doesn't sound outrageous for a company with billions and billions of dollars in the bank, and billions more coming in every quarter. edit: If anything there's probably immense pressure on Cook to buy buy buy more stuff. I don't think anyone inside Apple wants to have a repeat of stuff like old Apple maps or other products that just languished and died internally while external companies…

Maps hasn’t languished at all.

Sadly Apple Maps’ POIs are still way behind Google Maps. I can usually treat Google Maps POIs as the ground truth now, after asking locals turned out to be wildly less accurate several times. I even had multiple Taxi drivers taking their own way instead of following gmaps and it was a total failure.

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#123

Post by TaylorAlexander » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 7:48 AM UTC

Judgmentality wrote: post #34

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe... Google seems to be taking that strategy but it feels like it leads to some kind of flaw in their thinking around product support.

How long has it been since Google had a notable successful acquisition? I'm asking because I can't think of anything recent.

I guess I wasn’t thinking about acquisitions so much as “you only need one success”. They throw a lot out there I guess hoping some of them will pay off, but it leaves them coming off as scattered to the outside.

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#124

Post by throwaways885 » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 7:58 AM UTC

dang wrote: post #84

root_axis wrote: post #58

The HN commentary on this article is amusing to me. Every story about a big tech company on this forum is a lecture on our degenerate age of failed antitrust law, but when it comes to Apple we're treated to a litany of "so what?". Honestly, I don't mind Apple's acquisitions (though I do wish I was living in a world where I could buy an M1 the same way I can buy an i7), but I just felt compelled to drop this little nu…

This sort of perception about community bias comes up with every $BigCo. Then the comments complaining about it get highly upvoted, undermining the supposed observation. I think it has more to do with how our emotions subtly influence how we weight what we read. We're more likely to notice the cases we dislike/disagree with and let the ones we like/agree with glide by without affecting our impression of the community…

Part of the concern is Apple spends a ton of money marketing themselves as "pro-privacy and pro-consumer, more than those "other" $BigCo's". I've seen people say they're immune to advertising and then beat the Apple drum many times.

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#125

Post by read_if_gay_ » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 8:10 AM UTC

zaphirplane wrote: post #114

apahwa wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

can you name a business that is completely unrelated to Apple or Amazon and would not see significant benefits from being absorbed?

For apple :- a farm, cattle station, cement factory, brick maker, carpets, upholstery, chicken farm the list goes on

Introducing Apple Chicken.

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#126

Post by kergonath » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 8:19 AM UTC

throwaways885 wrote: post #124

dang wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sort of perception about community bias comes up with every $BigCo. Then the comments complaining about it get highly upvoted, undermining the supposed observation. I think it has more to do with how our emotions subtly influence how we weight what we read. We're more likely to notice the cases we dislike/disagree with and let the ones we like/agree with glide by without affecting our impression of the community…

Part of the concern is Apple spends a ton of money marketing themselves as "pro-privacy and pro-consumer, more than those "other" $BigCo's". I've seen people say they're immune to advertising and then beat the Apple drum many times.

I am so tired of this “marketing” angle, as if anyone having different priorities must be an idiot manipulated by the communication department of a large evil company. It’s been a trope since the 1990s.

Also, nobody is immune to advertising, so you can take these comments as seriously as the “sheeple” ones.

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#127

Post by bryanrasmussen » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 8:31 AM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #11

zepto wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is it embarrassing? They obviously did well enough to be worth acquiring.

An acqui-hire is typically considered a failure for VC-backed startups. (Not that one should necessarily be embarrassed for “failing” in this way, but that’s just the reality).

I think, from reading the back and forth here, that there seem to be a number of different types of acqui-hires and as such we can't really be sure to what extent the acqui-hire represents a failure.

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#128

Post by kergonath » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 8:41 AM UTC

root_axis wrote: post #74

PierceJoy wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this a distinction without a difference? LinkedIn's tech is wholly owned and funded by Microsoft. If you are competing with LinkedIn, you are competing with Microsoft regardless of the name on the website. Since more diverse competition is the goal, I don't believe these situations are actually different.

The distinction is that the other examples listed continue to exist in their original form with their original vision and use-case intact, without disrupting the user experience by being shutdown and reconstituted as part of an Apple exclusive product or service.

You are probably right about the user experience, but

> with their original vision and use-case intact

This is a difficult point to make in the face of what’s becoming if WhatsApp and Instagram. Certainly, the vision has changed quite a lot and now Facebook is tearing down the last insulating walls between them and WhatsApp users’ data. Same for Nest, for example. Sure, it continued as a brand for a while, but that was just a facade.

Microsoft might be a better case than Facebook for your argument: LinkedIn and GitHub seem to have more or less stayed the same (but then so has Beats, as well, and that certainly is an outlier).

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#129

Post by kergonath » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 8:50 AM UTC

purpmint008 wrote: post #117

Karunamon wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We didn't "go hard on" Microsoft for mere bundling of basic tools like media viewers and web browsers. It was because they were using that dominant position (which is perfectly fine to have) to behave anticompetitively (which is not).

> "behave anticompetitively" What is Apple doing when it bundles iMessage and SMS together? Deception and anti-competitive behavior, that's what!

How so? What is their nefarious plan and how do they go about it? If you are the one seeing the truth and you want to be taken seriously you need to do better than just throw around words like “monopoly” and “anti-competitive” with no justification whatsoever.

Re: Apple buys a company every three to four weeks

#130

Post by pvg » Thu, Feb 25, 2021, 9:05 AM UTC

root_axis wrote: post #93

dang wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sort of perception about community bias comes up with every $BigCo. Then the comments complaining about it get highly upvoted, undermining the supposed observation. I think it has more to do with how our emotions subtly influence how we weight what we read. We're more likely to notice the cases we dislike/disagree with and let the ones we like/agree with glide by without affecting our impression of the community…

Fair enough, and the search results are both illuminating and humbling, but I'll also offer that perceptions of community bias aren't necessarily wrong even though they aren't an absolute fact.

perceptions that aren't fact are much more likely to be actual bias rather than 'not necessarily wrong'