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The Next Generation Bends Over

37signals.com

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Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#201

Post by billswift »

azanar wrote: post #93
webwright wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think what we don't know here is the dream/ambition of the founders. Maybe their dreams were too expensive to chase or they otherwise didn't feel equipped to chase them. Fuck you money (for a lot of people) isn't "go buy a Caribbean island" money. It's "I can finally build the company I WANTED to build" money. (anticipating response of "Why not just build the company you're passionate about to begin with?") Some co…

"Fuck you money" is a bad name, then. But I think it's stuck because, for a lot of people, it is buying a Caribbean island money; it is their chance to say "fuck you" to everyone who still has to work for a living. Their ambition is to display their wealth conspicuously, and otherwise sit on their asses while other people envy them. I can't imagine someone working because they want to saying "fuck you" to someone who…

Actually it's not about saying "fuck you to everyone who still has to work for a living". It's about saying FUCK YOU to the bosses who tell people what to do; and who doesn't want to say THAT, at least occasionally?

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#202

Post by billswift »

webwright wrote: post #154
shiranaihito wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought that "fuck you" money meant never having to work again, and thus being able to say "fuck you" to a nasty boss, followed by "I quit".

It was a metaphor. In other words-- The Mint guys might take that FU money to enjoy a life of leisure. Or they might use it to work on what they REALLY want to work on. And obviously FU money here has a very different meaning than to punt a nasty boss-- given that they people who made the decision to sell here WERE the boss.

Owning your own company doesn't make you the boss; it means you have a lot more bosses, your customers. The advantage of working for yourself or your own company is that there is no ONE boss who can fire you. The disadvantage is having to deal with many more, if individually weaker, bosses.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#203

Post by billswift »

mattm wrote: post #52
omgsean wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"lots of homeless people break free all the time and many of them are way happier than those receiving big exits for startups. That is not hyperbole." I'm sure you can find several homeless people who are happier than several people who made FU money in a short amount of time, but I'd be willing to bet that on average, people who started up a company and sold it for dump trucks full of cash are happier than homeless…

I wouldn't be too sure about that. Many lottery winners are actually less happier a year after winning the lottery than before. Many also wish they had never won. Of course, this could be psychological due to them not having done anything to earn the money.

I suspect it's more from their not being able to manage the money. One thing getting your money by working, saving, investing, creating your own company does teach is how to manage money.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#204

Post by abalashov »

justin wrote: post #188
abalashov wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I don't know that any argument about their relative merits as a company, a product or a competitor really trumps the "fuck you money" factor in this case. $170m is several metric, cubic butt-tons of money, even granted some fairly substantial fragmentation of equity among top executives and managers. That said, one does have to keep in mind how relative the concept of "fuck you money" really is. I, for exampl…

Here is a great post on taking money off the table by Mark Suster: http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2009/09/02/should-founder...

I disagree with the premise that "feed the family" money is all the founders should ever be allowed to take off.

They deserve a higher than minimal and/or even average salary, too.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#205

Post by abalashov »

billswift wrote: post #200
ahoyhere wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a Cult of Personality. Benign, sure, and helpful even, but that's what you have to do to get your message across: repeat it, over and over, from a million slightly different angles. Only nerds -- and people with no persuasive skills (or influence) -- think that saying something "the right way," once, is productive.

It's not benign or helpful when it drives, or excuses, attacks on successful companies.

That depends on whether you agree with it.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#206

Post by ahoyhere »

billswift wrote: post #200
ahoyhere wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a Cult of Personality. Benign, sure, and helpful even, but that's what you have to do to get your message across: repeat it, over and over, from a million slightly different angles. Only nerds -- and people with no persuasive skills (or influence) -- think that saying something "the right way," once, is productive.

It's not benign or helpful when it drives, or excuses, attacks on successful companies.

Of course it is. It's helpful for the people who've already bought into 37Signals' philosophy of doing business. For them, it's a reminder -- in-the-group signalling -- like a vaccination. If people nod and go, "Yeah! That's so true!" then they are confirming their group identity and commitment to the philosophy they've adopted.

If you're not thinking about these things all the time when you're reading things, you're not getting maximum usefulness out of them.

It's not just what people say, or what people read, but WHY.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#207

Post by pbhjpbhj »

pg wrote: post #3

A bit harsh, for something so speculative. It's a rare founder who has no offer he'd take. In fact, if you have shareholders or employees with options, and someone makes you an offer that's significantly above the expected value of your company, fiduciary responsibility requires you to take it. You can bend this requirement to some extent by overestimating your expected value, but there is always some number you'd ha…

fiduciary responsibility requires you to take it.

If you have major shareholders or they vote to take it against your wishes then perhaps. But, if you are the major 'holder or have a casting vote then you can do as you wish. Sure greed may motivate you more the bigger the numbers get but you don't have to take the money.

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#208

Post by telemachos »

vagostino wrote: post #166
brown9-2 wrote: post #134

Isn't Aaron Patzer taking a fairly high-ranking job inside Intuit (as head of "personal finance software" or something) once the acquisition closes? If this was an acquisition fueled completely by a VC or investor, I doubt the founder would be interested or willing to then commit to the Big Evil Company that his revolution is being sold to. Therefore I think the main premise of Jason's blog post is wrong.

You've hit the nail on the head here. See Scott Cook's (Intuit's founder) blog post: http://www.mint.com/blog/updates/intuit-not-out-to-change-mi...

A side note, but the pitch of that blog post is so odd:

>>Scott Cook from Intuit here. OK, I’m about to date myself. Long ago (27 years ago in fact), I watched my wife complain about paying the bills. That gave me an idea. And that idea became Quicken. Check with your parents – they might use it. Maybe even your grandparents.

>>But probably not you. For many of you, Quicken is a 20th century product in a 21st century world. It’s like the car your parents had growing up. So you turned to Mint.com. Because it wasn’t Quicken.

He seems to deliberately and at every opportunity play up what an out-of-touch old fart he is. You can almost hear the fake twang as he sits on his rocking chair...

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#209

Post by rythie »

PonyGumbo wrote: post #136
jacquesm wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pay off close friends' debts Honorable, but basically flawed. Your relationship with your friends will change because of something like that, it is very very nice of you to want to share the wealth, but someone that has a sense of honour themselves will either have to refuse your offer or they will accept and it will hurt their sense about themselves. Should you ever find such wealth be very careful how you approac…

Had he suggested that he'd pay off his mother's mortgage, I doubt there would be many objections. For some of us, close friends are closer than family. If I came into a sum of money that enabled me to help the people closest to me, I'd do it in a heartbeat - and I'm quite certain that my friends would, too. I also can't imagine taking a heartfelt offer from a close friend as an "intrusion," but then I'm sure it depen…

I can see paying off my your parent's mortgage [if I could], they did after all give me free board and food for ~18 years etc. I do after all owe them. I'm not sure about friends and other family, they'd probably see it as an insult - I'd probably offer to help them get training/education either as a loan or a gift [again if I could].

Re: The Next Generation Bends Over

#210

Post by pyre »

itgoon wrote: post #198
pyre wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Part of it is couching it all in the right terms. You aren't doing this for them, you're doing it for yourself. I don't like cheap vodka, I like the good stuff. I don't like Motel 6. Then don't bring it up again. That may be, but it depends on the people. There are people that could resent this and see it as you rubbing your money in their face.

That's why you don't bring it up again. This isn't theory; it works, at least for me.

> it works, at least for me.

It's just easier to say, "it works for me." By saying 'it works, at least for me,' you're claiming that it will always work everywhere 100% of the time... then saying "but I could be wrong." This is just anecdotal evidence. It's possible that none of your friends are the kind of people that would react that way, or that you have a personality that causes people to quickly forgive you for such things.

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