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Watching an acquirer ruin your company

startupwin.kelsus.com

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Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#191

Post by varjag »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #84
jmyeet wrote: post #13

As soon as someone hands you the check it's no longer "your" company and you should stop thinking of it as such. Only misery lies on that path. I see this on a smaller scale where ICs leave a company and take a copy of "their" code (ask Sergey Aleynikov [1] if that's a good idea). It's not yours. If you ever use it you could face legal consequences. And there's no code I've ever written that I wasn't convinced I coul…

Have you ever started a business before? Yes, you technically no longer own it once sold, but there's a huge amount of blood, sweat and tears that goes into building something from nothing - not to mention a sense of loyalty to your staff - and you genuinely do want to see it go into good hands and become managed well. I guess a somewhat leaky analogy would be like giving away a dog you raised to another family and f…

It's more like selling your dog for a lucrative amount, even if there's 50/50 odds the new owner is a sadist.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#192

Post by JackFr »

midnightclubbed wrote: post #82
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #18

> As soon as Sphero completed the acquisition, bringing Kelsus in as an app developer, two things happened: 1) Sphero told us they needed fully revamped iOS and Android apps six months later with no schedule wiggle room. 2) Sphero spent the first two of those six months organizing a team on their side and hashing out requirements for the new apps. This exact pattern has preceded every mismanagement disaster I've ever…

The story fills in all the reasons why ‘management’ start at #1. Company A buys company B for a product it believes in. Company A knows that company B was incapable of getting product to finish line, which is why they sold out. No problem though, company A has done this before… The managers at company A are assigned to ship product, just like they have before. Managers can’t say “its all good, we’ll give them a coupl…

> At every stage everyone is doing their job. Everyone is trying to do the right thing for success and to not get fired. Everyone has a problem that can only be fixed by someone at a different level compromising on their quality of work or their personal happiness.

I think this hits the nail on the head.

A bunch of reasonably competent people went in with the best intentions, all in good faith and over time it became clear certain assumptions were either too optimistic or simply wrong.

While there is definitely blame to be apportioned, the frustration felt by all involved leads to a very human reaction of calling it malevolence or incompetence.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#193

Post by smcl »

mm007emko wrote: post #144
Phlarp wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And still too busy smelling our own farts to unionize.

Well, question is which part of the world you live in, of course. But I don't need to unionize. If I am not satisfied in my job I can switch. Each consecutive job hop past 15 years got me better pay, better benefits and sometimes a better job (sometimes it was equaly shitty as the prevous one but for better money). This does not happen for unionized workers. Maybe in the future we will have to unionize. Definitely no…

Would this not be the best time to form a union, though? If we start to hit tough times when programmers are treated like shit and the job market is tight, then your colleagues will be less inclined to rock the boat and management will be actively trying to crack down on any attempts to organize. Basically when you need a union it could be too late.

Right now management will be off-guard, not expecting any unionisation push and will be a little bit unprepared as to how to counter it (that is, if they even try). Employees will likely feel comfortable openly discussing unions knowing that they probably won't feel any reprisals (and if they do, well the job market is still pretty good for the moment). The tough part would be convincing someone on $1x0,000/year that they might benefit from a union.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#194

Post by matwood »

paxys wrote: post #20

All too familiar a story, and the advice at the end ("know your acquirer") is pointless. Simply put, the acquirer isn't ruining your company, they are ruining their company. The contract you signed and the money you exchanged gives them that right. It is foolish to expect that you will get a big payday and will get to keep setting the company direction and calling the shots as you like indefinitely. Here's better adv…

> the advice at the end ("know your acquirer") is pointless

Agree. It's impossible to really know your acquirer unless they are a bigger publicly traded company. Every acquirer puts their best foot forward, talks about how awesome their culture is, and how they are going to do all the things to help you grow faster. IME, it never works that way.

> the moment you sign the contract start counting the days left in your retention agreement and quit right after.

That's a bit too cynical for me. But, you do need to answer some questions, do you want to be an employee? Are you ok not being the one in charge? If you got a decent payout in the acquisition, you have a lot of freedom in the new job if you want to try to keep things going.

One other thing to note, is that many times companies can be spun back out. I know multiple founders who have had this happen.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#195

Post by teddyh »

jmyeet wrote: post #13

As soon as someone hands you the check it's no longer "your" company and you should stop thinking of it as such. Only misery lies on that path. I see this on a smaller scale where ICs leave a company and take a copy of "their" code (ask Sergey Aleynikov [1] if that's a good idea). It's not yours. If you ever use it you could face legal consequences. And there's no code I've ever written that I wasn't convinced I coul…

A child is still your child, even after they turn 18.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#196

Post by lizknope »

ncmncm wrote: post #44

Possibly more common is when the company is bought specifically to shut it down, because the product's success would hurt, or is hurting, sales of their own product. There used to be a category of software called "electronic design automation". It presented an interactive editor where you could enter the schematic diagram of an integrated circuit, and also enter a chip layout, and it would ensure that they matched. I…

I'm curious which companies you are talking about?

I design semiconductors and I use EDA software everyday.

I know Cadence was formed from a merger in 1988 and they have since bought around 30 other EDA companies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadence_Design_Systems

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#197

Post by _0ffh »

brigandish wrote: post #122
AussieWog93 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is something I've come across in my own experience. If you don't actually have any experience in the problem space, the best thing you can do is make something that just barely works, then scrap it. Then all the unknown unknowns become known unknowns and you can actually create good solutions to it. All planning is a waste if you don't even know where the speed humps will lie.

It's basically a variation of Chesterton's fence[1]. There's a lot of hubris in thinking one could write a piece of code better than someone else if one has never attempted to write that piece of code, especially when never even having done anything like it at all. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesterton%27s_fence#Chesterto...

Yeah, like to do the job properly you need someone who's done the same job before. Become that someone by exploratorily building the thing you want to build before you seriously build it.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#198

Post by kortilla »

SamoyedFurFluff wrote: post #190
mm007emko wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, question is which part of the world you live in, of course. But I don't need to unionize. If I am not satisfied in my job I can switch. Each consecutive job hop past 15 years got me better pay, better benefits and sometimes a better job (sometimes it was equaly shitty as the prevous one but for better money). This does not happen for unionized workers. Maybe in the future we will have to unionize. Definitely no…

I also don’t need to unionize but I’m pro-union. I think software should have a guild like the actors guild, that enforced minimum standards. when Kickstarter ran its unionizing campaign it turns out one of their demands was no productivity tracking software! I would love to know as a member of such a hypothetical guild I have collective clout to ensure I’ll never have to deal with a bullshit metric tracker again.

> when Kickstarter ran its unionizing campaign it turns out one of their demands was no productivity tracking software!

This is naive. Any ticket tracking system can be used to track productivity. And if you don’t have a ticket tracking system to organize work, that’s a miserable environment to work in.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#199

Post by andruby »

closewith wrote: post #157
mm007emko wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, question is which part of the world you live in, of course. But I don't need to unionize. If I am not satisfied in my job I can switch. Each consecutive job hop past 15 years got me better pay, better benefits and sometimes a better job (sometimes it was equaly shitty as the prevous one but for better money). This does not happen for unionized workers. Maybe in the future we will have to unionize. Definitely no…

> And this is not a matter of pay, e.g. airline pilots are paid more than programmers here yet they are heavily unionized. [Citation needed]

If this happens to be about France, then I can second this. $116K AirFrance vs €39K software engineer.

https://fr.glassdoor.be/Salaries/airfrance-pilot-salary-SRCH...

https://www.payscale.com/research/FR/Job=Software_Engineer_%...

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#200

Post by kortilla »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #174
mm007emko wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, question is which part of the world you live in, of course. But I don't need to unionize. If I am not satisfied in my job I can switch. Each consecutive job hop past 15 years got me better pay, better benefits and sometimes a better job (sometimes it was equaly shitty as the prevous one but for better money). This does not happen for unionized workers. Maybe in the future we will have to unionize. Definitely no…

>But I don't need to unionize. If I am not satisfied in my job I can switch. [...] This does not happen for unionized workers. I can't work out what "this" is that does not happen to unionised workers? Unionised workers can switch jobs to get more pay too.

If the union has a structure with the company that rewards seniority then job hoppers are punished.
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