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The end of Airplane.dev

yolken.net

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Re: The end of Airplane.dev

#41

Post by neilv »

neilv wrote: post #29

> Several people on the team confronted the CEO, but he denied that there was an acquisition brewing. If there actually was an acquisition brewing at that time, and it's true that the CEO denied to employees that there was, that's one way to spoil any existing culture of honesty and goodwill.

Another angle: If a CEO denies to employees that an acquisition is in the works, to retain employees, but there actually was an acquisition in the works, and an acquisition happened, and it included employees' stock becoming officially worth $0 (or some other arguable financial harm)... could that constitute legally actionable fraud?

Re: The end of Airplane.dev

#42

Post by stevage »

danenania wrote: post #15
peterldowns wrote: post #8

Very clear and well-written article. I think that the author is likely to be correct that the CEO was overwhelmed by going alone. One thing not mentioned at all, though, is what the investors in Airplane might have wanted to happen. Seriously, ctrl-f for "investor", it doesn't show up even once. In addition to the CEO being overwhelmed and tired, it's very important to realize that: - Airplane raised a $32mm series B…

Right, and another factor to consider is what percentage of the company was owned by investors. After a series B, they may have owned a majority. Apart from exerting pressure, it’s possible that this decision was made 100% by the investors and the founder(s) had no choice. It could also be considered poor form for a founder to make this public if that’s what happened. It’s important to understand who is actually in c…

If that were the case, why wouldn't the CEO say so?

Re: The end of Airplane.dev

#43

Post by mgummelt »

rmnoon wrote: post #34
mgummelt wrote: post #21

One factor that no one seems to have noticed is that both cofounders, Ravi and Joshua, have already built fairly big companies. Ravi was the co-founder at Heap (he took over my co-founder spot after I left), and Joshua was the CTO at Benchling. Both of those companies have raised >$100M. After that success, the prospect of continuing to run a middling company in the shadow of Retool isn't very appealing.

How did I not know you were an original cofounder at Heap?

I was only there for a few months!

Re: The end of Airplane.dev

#46

Post by LewisJEllis »

rbranson wrote: post #22

While I can't vouch for Ben's time at Airplane, I worked adjacent to Ben at Segment and can say his reputation there was unimpeachable and his work was top notch, so it doesn't surprise me that he'd publish something so thoughtful and informative.

As an Airplane customer, Ben was the man, always super helpful when we had questions.

When we heard Airplane was shutting down, everyone's first thought was "can we hire that Yolken guy?"

Re: The end of Airplane.dev

#47

Post by SmellTheGlove »

mgummelt wrote: post #21

One factor that no one seems to have noticed is that both cofounders, Ravi and Joshua, have already built fairly big companies. Ravi was the co-founder at Heap (he took over my co-founder spot after I left), and Joshua was the CTO at Benchling. Both of those companies have raised >$100M. After that success, the prospect of continuing to run a middling company in the shadow of Retool isn't very appealing.

How does one take over a co-founder role? Is it a job title now? If he took over for you he didn’t actually found the company, right?

I’m not asking this sarcastically. Trying to understand how this works because I’ve always taken “co-founder” to mean “I was one of the people that started this company from day 1”

Re: The end of Airplane.dev

#48

Post by hoherd »

neilv wrote: post #29

> Several people on the team confronted the CEO, but he denied that there was an acquisition brewing. If there actually was an acquisition brewing at that time, and it's true that the CEO denied to employees that there was, that's one way to spoil any existing culture of honesty and goodwill.

It's probable that he was legally bound by a confidentiality agreement.

Re: The end of Airplane.dev

#49

Post by digging »

danenania wrote: post #15
peterldowns wrote: post #8

Very clear and well-written article. I think that the author is likely to be correct that the CEO was overwhelmed by going alone. One thing not mentioned at all, though, is what the investors in Airplane might have wanted to happen. Seriously, ctrl-f for "investor", it doesn't show up even once. In addition to the CEO being overwhelmed and tired, it's very important to realize that: - Airplane raised a $32mm series B…

Right, and another factor to consider is what percentage of the company was owned by investors. After a series B, they may have owned a majority. Apart from exerting pressure, it’s possible that this decision was made 100% by the investors and the founder(s) had no choice. It could also be considered poor form for a founder to make this public if that’s what happened. It’s important to understand who is actually in c…

> It’s important to understand who is actually in charge before assigning blame to anyone.

But also,

> It could also be considered poor form for a founder to make this public if that’s what happened.

I mean, they asked the CEO what was going on and he didn't seem to give good explanations. Especially if it wasn't his decision.

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