Watching an acquirer ruin your company • Hacker News Board

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#331

Post by yieldcrv » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 3:24 PM UTC

anticensor wrote: post #330

yieldcrv wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you create a new company, you write down an arbitrary number of shares that it is made of, and give yourself 100% of them at $0.00. From then on, the goal is to sell shares at > $0.00 But instead of selling any of those shares, when an investor comes you create a bunch more shares at $0.00 and sell them, dropping your percent of ownership to < 100% while not incurring a capital gains tax event.

> When you create a new company, you write down an arbitrary number of shares that it is made of, and give yourself 100% of them at $0.00. Initial capital is a thing, and most jurisdictions have strict requirements on the minimum and maximum size of initial shares.

Initial capital is a thing for suckers. The zero par value jurisdictions allow you to operate everywhere else just as well.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#332

Post by leaflets2 » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 4:58 PM UTC

robocat wrote: post #311

moomoo11 wrote: post #261

Dum question from someone who has no business experience but trying to start a company. If my goal is to build something useful for my customers, is there any harm in converting the company into a co-op or something when I get bored? I have a lot of money (not bragging, because it’s not like millions and millions, but I’m fine) so I’m not motivated by that. Rather I want to solve problems and create an environment wh…

There are reasons why successful co-ops are uncommon and that most successful organisations are top-down structures. A good way to cheaply and deeply learn the reasons for yourself, would be to join some co-op’s (or perhaps charities) in your area. A little experience within a successful co-op and within at least one unsuccessful co-op would go a long way. Good luck!

Please tell me more? I've a bit been wondering if a non profit could be better than a Limited Liability Company for some future projects

And I work 60h/week already, cannot join two coops to learn more :-(

I suppose one problem could be that they'd try to make decisions via consensus or votes -- but there might be one person who is brighter and/or knows more than the others, and leaving most decisions to that one can be an improvement?

Imagine the Linux kernel starting to make decisions via consensus or votes, rather than a BDFL?

(I'm sbd else)

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#333

Post by andruby » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 5:06 PM UTC

closewith wrote: post #327

andruby wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s absurd in most countries I’m sure. The OP said > airline pilots are paid more than programmers here (emphasis mine) I just gave one geographical example where I believe that to be true. I don’t think it is true everywhere, nor do I think OP meant that.

It seems clear he means in Europe from his preceding sentence, where I think it is absurd ( including in France).

With “is absurd”, do you mean that the statement isn’t true, or that you think that pilot’s should not be earning more than software engineers?

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#334

Post by leaflets2 » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 5:15 PM UTC

snarkypixel wrote: post #246

My startup was acquired and it was fucking hell. Next time I get acquired I'll make sure to have everything in writing and planned for me to get out within one year.

What were the three worst things?

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#335

Post by anticensor » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 6:28 PM UTC

yieldcrv wrote: post #331

anticensor wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you create a new company, you write down an arbitrary number of shares that it is made of, and give yourself 100% of them at $0.00. Initial capital is a thing, and most jurisdictions have strict requirements on the minimum and maximum size of initial shares.

Initial capital is a thing for suckers. The zero par value jurisdictions allow you to operate everywhere else just as well.

Unfortunately, rules of domicile kick in if you try to do that, and eventually force you to set up a shop in their jurisdiction.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#336

Post by TameAntelope » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 7:09 PM UTC

HWR_14 wrote: post #320

TameAntelope wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you worked on a project for any amount of time that wasn’t put in front of users (who would catch obvious mistakes like what you describe), you aren’t taking your job seriously and have bigger problems than feeling bad about throwing away code.

The point here is that programmers are assigned tasks, do them, and the management (whose job is to put it in front of users) is failing at that leading to wasted efforts. Although I should point out that 2/3 of the examples would not have been caught by a user, because they are compliance related.

If your team is organized in a way where programmers are assigned tasks to execute, you are not operating on a modern software team, and that is your problem first and foremost.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#337

Post by usrn » Mon, Jul 04, 2022, 9:23 PM UTC

the_lonely_road wrote: post #101

usrn wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>8hr "planning" sessions One place I was at had quarterly 3 day planning sessions. That was something else.

Wait that actually sounds awesome. What we’re your issues with this practice? A 3 day code freeze while everyone works to solidify a “meeting of the minds” followed by 87 days of heads down progress sounds like fucking heaven to me compared to the weekly planning meetings on top of daily stands up I live with now.

We had weekly planning and "triage" meetings too. This was on top of the normal stuff. It wasn't all heads down either. If you finished your tickets before the next planning meeting you could relax, edit the wiki, look for stuff to write new tickets for etc.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#338

Post by ncmncm » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 2:29 AM UTC

lizknope wrote: post #328

ncmncm wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back then the big EDA outfits were Mentor Graphics, Daisy, and Valid. ECAD became Cadence, embraced silicon compilers, and ate everybody's lunch. Back then, chips were still laid out by pasting up prepared logic blocks, gates, and occasional custom transistors, and routing metal traces between them, all on what we would today call a low-resolution workstation monitor. A million transistors was a lot. These would be o…

I started working in 1997 doing digital physical design. I had never heard the term "silicon compiler" before so I looked it up. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silicon_compiler Silicon compilation takes place in three major steps: Convert a hardware-description language such as Verilog or VHDL into logic (typically in the form of a "netlist"). Place equivalent logic gates on the IC. Silicon compilers typically use sta…

I have been out of that world for 30 years. The terminology has stabilized since, and the software has got overwhelmingly more sophisticated, and also (I hear) comically buggy. Comically if you are not obliged to rely on it. Maybe tragically, otherwise, with no expectation of improvement.

Some of us remember Rubylith with conflicted fondness.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#339

Post by sverhagen » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 4:40 AM UTC

ratww wrote: post #326

sverhagen wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, so I'd quit and find something better. That's all I'm saying: it's one or the other, not both (for me).

If you're in a privileged position of quitting, then sure. I personally know better not to judge people who are not. A job doesn't deserve more from you than it gives you.

I didn't mean to be judgemental, I was just reflecting on my personal situation and experience. I started off by saying: [theirs] may be good advise. Sorry if that came across differently.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#340

Post by robocat » Tue, Jul 05, 2022, 4:43 AM UTC

leaflets2 wrote: post #332

robocat wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are reasons why successful co-ops are uncommon and that most successful organisations are top-down structures. A good way to cheaply and deeply learn the reasons for yourself, would be to join some co-op’s (or perhaps charities) in your area. A little experience within a successful co-op and within at least one unsuccessful co-op would go a long way. Good luck!

Please tell me more? I've a bit been wondering if a non profit could be better than a Limited Liability Company for some future projects And I work 60h/week already, cannot join two coops to learn more :-( I suppose one problem could be that they'd try to make decisions via consensus or votes -- but there might be one person who is brighter and/or knows more than the others, and leaving most decisions to that one can…

I have little direct experience, but what I do have all points towards failures of consensus.

Look at the most recent company you worked for, and from your colleagues think of: one idiot engineer, one idiot manager, and one idiot admin. Now imagine that they each feel they have equal rights as anyone to share their “input” into that business, and imagine trying to find consensus with you. Now multiply that problem by 10, because it isn’t just idiots that want to have their say, and most people have valid input that needs to be ignored because most businesses need a leader to provide focused power on a few plays.

I know of successful co-ops, but those seem to usually have a corporate structure and members have limited power, and I don’t know their internals.

Do you feel you have the skills to manage a co-op? Superficially you appear to be somewhat idealistic and innocent of the difficulty: although I think most traditional startup founders have and need those traits! Advice is cheap and experience is expensive: go with whatever works for you.