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My role as a founder-CTO: year 8

miguelcarranza.es

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Re: My role as a founder-CTO: year 8

#41

Post by airstrike »

raw_anon_1111 wrote: post #9
airstrike wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with that analysis is it ignores all the companies that exited through an acquisition rather than public markets. If anything, it's an endorsement of M&A.

My “analysis” was the idea of a private company that seems to want to stay independent and control their own destrone like the author of the submission wants. There are only two ways to stay independent - stay private forever or go public. Once you take outside funding, you really have no choice but an acquisition or go public. VCs don’t want to get tiny dividend checks. Even public shareholders will insist on a sale…

Going public doesn't keep you independent, though, unless you were already the kind of unicorn that has enough pull to own a massive amount of shares and/or a special class of them

Re: My role as a founder-CTO: year 8

#42

Post by nradov »

mjr00 wrote: post #40
weslleyskah wrote: post #30

Why this industry has such a claustrophobic atmosphere? If he was a doctor and had a calling for the profession, I would understand. I was doing an unrelated degree (Econ), but now I am doing a tech degree and I never saw such a depressive mentality towards life among peers. It is like these people are hell bound to the work culture, diehard workaholics. They don't know anything else outside of a computer screen. Hon…

> It is like these people are hell bound to the work culture, diehard workaholics. They don't know anything else outside of a computer screen. This is a founder/CTO. You don't get to be a founder or C-level without making work a lot more of your life than just a 9-5. As much as people complain about the C-suite not doing anything and spending all their time golfing, they're basically on work mode 24/7. I've never wor…

Everybody wants to be the CTO until it's time to do CTO things.

Re: My role as a founder-CTO: year 8

#43

Post by bcantrill »

afavour wrote: post #32
bcantrill wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know from the outside this seems very simple, but it's more complicated than that. Certainly, if the objective is (merely) security for one's children, that can be secured with much (much) less money (and likely was secured in the secondary that the author makes reference to); having nine figures of wealth is not an unvarnished good, and in particular makes raising grounded, self-reliant kids pretty complicated. To…

> having nine figures of wealth is not an unvarnished good, and in particular makes raising grounded, self-reliant kids pretty complicated Sure, but I’m pretty sure if you asked those parents if they’d rather lose all their money to make parenting easier their answer would be a resounding “no”.

Those aren't the choices. You don't understand how the poster passed on nine figures -- but if the secondary sale netted 7 figures (likely), the choice is in fact between having enough wealth to have total security for one's family versus having so much wealth that the wealth itself creates anxiety.

Re: My role as a founder-CTO: year 8

#44

Post by weslleyskah »

mjr00 wrote: post #40
weslleyskah wrote: post #30

Why this industry has such a claustrophobic atmosphere? If he was a doctor and had a calling for the profession, I would understand. I was doing an unrelated degree (Econ), but now I am doing a tech degree and I never saw such a depressive mentality towards life among peers. It is like these people are hell bound to the work culture, diehard workaholics. They don't know anything else outside of a computer screen. Hon…

> It is like these people are hell bound to the work culture, diehard workaholics. They don't know anything else outside of a computer screen. This is a founder/CTO. You don't get to be a founder or C-level without making work a lot more of your life than just a 9-5. As much as people complain about the C-suite not doing anything and spending all their time golfing, they're basically on work mode 24/7. I've never wor…

Perhaps I'm just a naive young imbecile.

Even with such a golden ticket ride to the heavens? You could do anything, focus on your family and build your little castle or depersonalize even, change countries, change your identity, make new connections, live a completely different life...

Re: My role as a founder-CTO: year 8

#45

Post by afavour »

riazrizvi wrote: post #36
afavour wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who has experienced family adversity in my life (health, disability) I couldn’t disagree with you more. Things happen. Expensive things. The security to be able to afford expansive cancer care without worry, to pay for therapy and specialized schooling for your child… these are huge, huge things and they happen to you (or your children, or your children’s children) no matter what you do or don’t do. This i…

Things happen, it’s true. And in the world there are many enterprises that spring up to present solutions as long as you fork over all your cash, and here in the USA, based on the market, that means lots and lots of cash. That’s just a perspective on hardship, it’s not the only way. People deal with hardships with many many tools. My favorite tools are dignity, grace, courage, personal strength, and ingenuity. Money…

With respect, those words feel very empty. Face the prospect of, say, chemotherapy you can’t afford or death. See how you feel about dignity and grace then.

Re: My role as a founder-CTO: year 8

#46

Post by harmonic18374 »

I feel RevenueCat is on shaky ground, their market position can only get worse and worse as Apple and Google improve their complimentary offerings and they are forced into more A/B testing that directly competes with others. Recent StoreKit changes this year close a lot of the remaining gap. I would have sold. I wonder why they chose not to.

Re: My role as a founder-CTO: year 8

#47

Post by afavour »

bcantrill wrote: post #43
afavour wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> having nine figures of wealth is not an unvarnished good, and in particular makes raising grounded, self-reliant kids pretty complicated Sure, but I’m pretty sure if you asked those parents if they’d rather lose all their money to make parenting easier their answer would be a resounding “no”.

Those aren't the choices. You don't understand how the poster passed on nine figures -- but if the secondary sale netted 7 figures (likely), the choice is in fact between having enough wealth to have total security for one's family versus having so much wealth that the wealth itself creates anxiety.

Then have someone manage the money away from you. Put it in a lifetime trust, whatever. The idea that you’d turn down that sum of money because of the anxiety it would cause you is simply not logical.

Re: My role as a founder-CTO: year 8

#48

Post by lizknope »

I had never heard of the company RevenueCat. It looks like a system for mobile app developers to make in app purchases. A few Internet sources say that RevenueCat has about 120 employees. I'm in a completely different field so I'm not going to claim to understand all of that but I have worked for 2 startups.

The author talks about himself and his co-founder Jacob and they went back and forth on whether to sell or not.

I am very interested in what the other 118 employees thought. Did they want the co-founders to sell? What was their equity in the company? What kind of deal would they get? Accelerated vesting? Much larger than normal RSU stock grant at the acquiring company compared to a normal new hire there? Nothing?

I post this link in many threads about startups about how the normal employees often get nothing. The author says "So we decided to raise another round" and I wonder if the co-founders share the liquidation preferences and captables with the other 118 employees.

https://www.reddit.com/r/startups/comments/a8f6xz/why_didnt_...

I posted this comment in a different startup related thread last month but I really wish the CEOs of both startups would have accepted these lower offers.

I don't know what the captable was at the first startup but at the second I would have got around $300K. This would have been a large amount of money for me but the founders wanted more so they rejected the offer.

Almost every "normal" level employee thought we should have taken the deal and then we would have also gotten jobs with normal RSU grants and bonuses at the acquiring company which was a well established company.

It made me decide to never work at a startup again. I don't want a single person to be able to control my financial situation that much. I'd rather have the relatively guaranteed yearly raise, bonus, and RSU grant, and not have to drink the Kool-Aid of the founders.

> I worked at 2 startups. Both failed.

> The first had been around for about 4 years when I joined and had products that made money. They were trying to get acquired. They had partnered with 2 companies making products specifically for them. One of them offered to buy the company for $30 million but the founders thought their company was worth $300 million. They said no and then money started to run out and people started leaving. In the end the assets were sold for $2 million.

> The second startup was created by former coworkers and I joined after it had existed for 4 months. We worked like crazy for the first year and got our prototype out. We had a lot of interest but it took me a while to realize that the 3 founders already had net worths from $5 million to billionaire level. When I heard about offers in the $30 million range they just weren't interested in selling for so little. I left after 3 years and the company floundered another 2 years until they shut it down as people left.

Re: My role as a founder-CTO: year 8

#49

Post by mjr00 »

weslleyskah wrote: post #44
mjr00 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It is like these people are hell bound to the work culture, diehard workaholics. They don't know anything else outside of a computer screen. This is a founder/CTO. You don't get to be a founder or C-level without making work a lot more of your life than just a 9-5. As much as people complain about the C-suite not doing anything and spending all their time golfing, they're basically on work mode 24/7. I've never wor…

Perhaps I'm just a naive young imbecile. Even with such a golden ticket ride to the heavens? You could do anything, focus on your family and build your little castle or depersonalize even, change countries, change your identity, make new connections, live a completely different life...

I don't think you're an imbecile. People just like living differently. "Work to live" vs "live to work" and all that.

Some people like working a stable but boring 9-5. Some people like working a challenging job, even for longer hours and lower pay. Some people like building things; some people like coordinating teams and managing people; some people like maximizing financial returns and seeing numbers go up.

As to why this specific person didn't take a 9-figure cashout (assuming it's true); I would imagine it's at least partly because this person thinks it could be worth more in the future. Crazy as it sounds, he may not be wrong. Remember that Larry and Sergey tried to sell their "Google" research project to Yahoo for a life-changing amount of $1 million (in 1998, they could have each bought a house!). Or a million-dollar sale that did happen, Roy Raymond selling Victoria's Secret for a million in 1982. (Multiple houses!)

Obviously 9 figures is a lot different than 7, especially in 2025. But he's also the CTO and has access to financials and company strategy. Who's to say that the $100,000,000 he would get won't be $250,000,000 in an acquisition next year? Even "just" a 25% bump in a year would be an extra $25 million, which in itself is life-changing. It's obviously a risk, but saying "this guy is crazy and/or an idiot for not taking a 9 figure cashout" isn't fair unless you can peer into the future.

Re: My role as a founder-CTO: year 8

#50

Post by pydry »

mjr00 wrote: post #40
weslleyskah wrote: post #30

Why this industry has such a claustrophobic atmosphere? If he was a doctor and had a calling for the profession, I would understand. I was doing an unrelated degree (Econ), but now I am doing a tech degree and I never saw such a depressive mentality towards life among peers. It is like these people are hell bound to the work culture, diehard workaholics. They don't know anything else outside of a computer screen. Hon…

> It is like these people are hell bound to the work culture, diehard workaholics. They don't know anything else outside of a computer screen. This is a founder/CTO. You don't get to be a founder or C-level without making work a lot more of your life than just a 9-5. As much as people complain about the C-suite not doing anything and spending all their time golfing, they're basically on work mode 24/7. I've never wor…

Ive worked with a lot of people who sent emails at 2am and in each case it was not necessary but it was performative.
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