I have to hand it to Marc Lore. Two spectacularly unprofitable businesses, with two spectacularly large exits. If this guy had been doing startups in the late 90's, he'd probably be the worlds first trillionaire by now.
Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B
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Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B
#42I love how a 3X exit is a "disappointing end". I'll take disappointment all day long.
When you are an investor and have tens or possible hundreds of investments, 3x will not cover much. You need one to leave orbit in order to stay in the game.
You can have 1 leave the orbit or 25% of them triple your money.
Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B
#43While this is a definite failure for Jet's optimistic investors, it's likely a great opportunity for Wal-Mart to challenge Amazon, and a win for consumers. It's also a big win for OCaml.
I tried shopping at Jet and while some of the prices were very good, others were worse than Amazon, and little things like product detail information, pictures, etc., were strongly subpar. Product search was also in serious need of tuning.
Does anyone know which pieces of infrastructure (or ops) that Jet built have the most value to Wal-Mart?
Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B
#44When Jet.com came out, I often checked it against Amazon, and did make some purchases through it. But there's some odd gaps, it has no category through which I can buy Blu-rays, for example. And it has huge inventory gaps on very basic current items. I honestly forgot to keep checking what I could get through it, as the gimmick of adding up a bunch of items for savings rarely amounted to very much.
I agree. Their browsing is absolutely useless, and their selection is downright bizarre.
Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B
#45Jet.com was founded in 2014. How did they get enough traction to be viable when there are so many other online retailers like Amazon, and all the other brick and mortar retailers that also have large online presence.
Advertisement, and marketing dollar. I have tried to look for items on it, but expectations are so high after using Amazon.
Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B
#46Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B
#47I have mixed feelings about this. Jet started up next to the town where I live, and after growing for a while they moved to the town where I used to live. I'd been watching their job postings since early on, and I probably could've gotten hired early. Their recruiter recently reached out to me, so I could probably still get hired there.
If they get bought out, I'd have missed out on potentially a very nice options payout. But then I'd have to find a new job, because I definitely wouldn't want to work for Wal-Mart. So I guess I'm happy with the decision to stay where I am, despite some of the drawbacks of working for a really tiny non-startup company. (Not that there aren't good perks too.)
For those of you who spend your careers in startups, how do you feel about new owners after a buy out? If you have reservations about them, do you stick around and see how it goes, or head straight for the exit?
Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B
#48I have mixed feelings about this. Jet started up next to the town where I live, and after growing for a while they moved to the town where I used to live. I'd been watching their job postings since early on, and I probably could've gotten hired early. Their recruiter recently reached out to me, so I could probably still get hired there. If they get bought out, I'd have missed out on potentially a very nice options pa…
I'm confused. You do or don't work there?
They raised 820M so I highly doubt it'll be that great of a payout considering that's only 4x what they raised.
As for a buyout, it's typically crappy because the company buying you ruins the culture.
Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B
#49While this is a definite failure for Jet's optimistic investors, it's likely a great opportunity for Wal-Mart to challenge Amazon, and a win for consumers. It's also a big win for OCaml. I tried shopping at Jet and while some of the prices were very good, others were worse than Amazon, and little things like product detail information, pictures, etc., were strongly subpar. Product search was also in serious need of t…
Jet's an F# shop though, not an OCaml shop.
Re: Wal-Mart in Talks to Buy Web Retailer Jet.com for $3B
#50While this is a definite failure for Jet's optimistic investors, it's likely a great opportunity for Wal-Mart to challenge Amazon, and a win for consumers. It's also a big win for OCaml. I tried shopping at Jet and while some of the prices were very good, others were worse than Amazon, and little things like product detail information, pictures, etc., were strongly subpar. Product search was also in serious need of t…
I think Jet.com is actually F# [0] (which is of course very similar to OCaml, but has quite a different ecosystem/tooling/etc.)
[0] - https://tech.jet.com/blog/2015/03-22-on-how-jet-chose/