Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Fig is sunsetting

fig.io

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 73 posts

Re: Fig is sunsetting

#51

Post by lulznews »

NotMichaelBay wrote: post #48
benzible wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fig team will be joining Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Amazon has acquired Fig's technology!" does not have the ring of "getting rich". Seems like acquihire + asset sale, quite possibly for a negligible price, and with liquidation preferences common stock is likely worthless. Not enough information to say for certain but deals along these lines are far more common than meaningful exits.

Why would they sell if it's for a negligible price? Seems like a pretty terrible deal if all they get out of it is to work at Amazon.

Job at Amazon + investors get x% back is better than no job and 0% for investors …

Re: Fig is sunsetting

#52

Post by davidrupp »

NotMichaelBay wrote: post #48
benzible wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fig team will be joining Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Amazon has acquired Fig's technology!" does not have the ring of "getting rich". Seems like acquihire + asset sale, quite possibly for a negligible price, and with liquidation preferences common stock is likely worthless. Not enough information to say for certain but deals along these lines are far more common than meaningful exits.

Why would they sell if it's for a negligible price? Seems like a pretty terrible deal if all they get out of it is to work at Amazon.

Perhaps because it was a better deal than any of the alternatives. I left a startup a few months before it was (as far as I know) acquihired, partly because I could see the end of the runway approaching. All of the extant team were offered roles at the acquiring company, which I'm sure they and their families appreciated. Is "all they get out of it is to work at Amazon" preferable to a Big $$$ Exit? Maybe not. But the latter may not have been an option IRL. As a side note, I've been working at Amazon for nearly ten years now, and I have not been displeased with the improvement in my financial situation thereby.

Re: Fig is sunsetting

#53

Post by benzible »

NotMichaelBay wrote: post #48
benzible wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fig team will be joining Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Amazon has acquired Fig's technology!" does not have the ring of "getting rich". Seems like acquihire + asset sale, quite possibly for a negligible price, and with liquidation preferences common stock is likely worthless. Not enough information to say for certain but deals along these lines are far more common than meaningful exits.

Why would they sell if it's for a negligible price? Seems like a pretty terrible deal if all they get out of it is to work at Amazon.

Lots of reasons...

* some return, even if negligible, for investors and the feeling of having done right by them

* decent hiring bonuses - so, some financial compensation even if the founders' equity was worthless

* reputation: they get to claim a successful exit, whatever the reality (so many founders dispense advice based on "multiple exits" which were all fire sales)

* continued life for the product... although in most cases the product is shut down and the team ends up splitting up and working on the acquirer's existing products

There's also just the psychology of it. After failing to raise the next round, you start a process to find some home for yourselves / your team / your product. Having gone through that process, if you come up with any offers, you're pretty likely to take the best one even if a purely rational analysis would suggest that you'd be better off doing something completely different.

Re: Fig is sunsetting

#56

Post by gkoberger »

rmdashrfv wrote: post #42
gkoberger wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At $2.2M in funding, they are (likely) on a SAFE. There's no board, meaning no real VC pressure. They used that money to build... it's not like they were a beloved, widely used developer tool ruined by VC money. It sucks, but to build certain things, you sometimes need money. $2.2M isn't a ton – they raised in 2020, so that's roughly only (market) salaries for 3 people for those 3 years. Not everything will work out.…

Yeah you're probably right about there not being any pressure. the 2.2M was a seed round. 2.2M is a lot for 3 people salaries for 3 years in my opinion

With taxes, office space, laptops, offsites, insurance, etc a rough rule of thumb is $250k for an engineer. $250k * 3 = $750k, and over 3 years that's $2.25M (doesn't include software, hosting, lawyers, contractors, marketing, etc).

Yeah, they probably spent less than that (esp the founders salaries), but my point is that $2.2M isn't as much money as it seems.

Re: Fig is sunsetting

#58

Post by lepetitchef »

I am not surprised. I tried to sign up for Fig after the news it is acquired by Amazon, the sign up page in the app is closed.

I check the Github issue page and it is stale for several months. Definitely this deal is acquire-hiring and all the Fig workflow will be absorbed to Amazon products.

Re: Fig is sunsetting

#59

Post by JayPalm »

Is Hyper next? Makes me a bit worried about Pydantic too, and a several other open source dev tools (like ruff, and all HTTP GUI clients) that have taken VC money.

Re: Fig is sunsetting

#60

Post by system2 »

Who the hell comes up with these words like "sunsetting"? I was working with a dental company and their software we integrated with our system stopped working. I called the company and asked why and they said "We sunset this product". It took me a while to understand what they were saying then they asked for money because they released a new one. Sunsetting was just a fancy word for a money grab.

Wouldn't be easier to say we abandon the project or kill it? Does sunset sound fancier?

Post reply on HN