Earlier quoted context omitted.
Is there a right way to do this? Yes. a. Make it a fully owned subsidiary. b. Don't fuck with it.
Didn't work for Nullsoft, did it?
Case in point for "don't fuck with it".
What happens after Yahoo acquires you
61–70 of 155 posts
Re: What happens after Yahoo acquires you
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
Do you have some examples of where that has worked in the medium - long term? (i.e longer than the 2-3 year mark most of these founders have bailed out at) I am guessing it can work but founders/entrepreneurs aren't necessarily the best managers and are likely to get bored and be looking for their next startup. As a new owner of a company it seems to make sense to transition the senior management to people who are mo…
Sure: IMDB, Audible, and Zappos. Also, the issue isn't that the founders leave; it's that the energy does. Founders are always going to leave.
But isn't that the issue? The energy tends to come from the founders so how do you reliably transition away from the founders, whether it is without full company integration or not?
Re: What happens after Yahoo acquires you
#63I once witnessed the moment when the messenger from the new management team comes over to explain to the brilliant engineers who built the company up from nothing about these "timesheets" they need to fill in, and how it's "really not a big deal". You could feel something dying over the course of the conversation. It was one of the most uncomfortable things I've ever seen, and I'm sure it's far worse if you are one o…
Why not just do the time-sheets?
For one thing, because it is part of the way that your team is turned into a Resource. I never watched Star Trek, but I'm pop-culture literate, and my understanding is they use something called "nanoprobes" to effect the process of "assimilation".
Once you're assimilated, business decisions that impact your team become an MBA math abstraction to the parent company leadership. Time sheets are BigCo's mechanism for mapping what people to do top-down business objectives. The tops of most BigCo's think they have a strategy, but usually don't.
Also, there is something about timecard software that brings out the worst in enterprise software developers. I have never, ever seen one implemented well. I get to see a lot of them in this job.
Re: What happens after Yahoo acquires you
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure: IMDB, Audible, and Zappos. Also, the issue isn't that the founders leave; it's that the energy does. Founders are always going to leave.
But isn't that the issue? The energy tends to come from the founders so how do you reliably transition away from the founders, whether it is without full company integration or not?
No. The issue isn't that the founders leave. It's that the team dies.
Re: What happens after Yahoo acquires you
#65Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance.
Re: What happens after Yahoo acquires you
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
Didn't work for Nullsoft, did it?
Case in point for "don't fuck with it".
From what I gather AOL didn't really "fuck" with Nullsoft, they kept working on what they wanted. Justin & Co. got bored being a big corp subsidiary and needing to work on WinAmp (which is what they were acquired for). And so it just didn't really whip llama's ass for them anymore, they escalated and quit. Effectively it was them fucking with AOL, not the other way around.
Re: What happens after Yahoo acquires you
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
But isn't that the issue? The energy tends to come from the founders so how do you reliably transition away from the founders, whether it is without full company integration or not?
No. The issue isn't that the founders leave. It's that the team dies.
I have to agree with hartror. If the founders leave then what are you left with? It sounds great in theory that a team can keep the motivation and innovation coming but ultimately that's the job of the founders - and founders aren't easily replaced.
Re: What happens after Yahoo acquires you
#68I once witnessed the moment when the messenger from the new management team comes over to explain to the brilliant engineers who built the company up from nothing about these "timesheets" they need to fill in, and how it's "really not a big deal". You could feel something dying over the course of the conversation. It was one of the most uncomfortable things I've ever seen, and I'm sure it's far worse if you are one o…
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Re: What happens after Yahoo acquires you
#69I once witnessed the moment when the messenger from the new management team comes over to explain to the brilliant engineers who built the company up from nothing about these "timesheets" they need to fill in, and how it's "really not a big deal". You could feel something dying over the course of the conversation. It was one of the most uncomfortable things I've ever seen, and I'm sure it's far worse if you are one o…
Is there a right way to do this? Yes. a. Make it a fully owned subsidiary. b. Don't fuck with it.
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Re: What happens after Yahoo acquires you
#70Hmm, for some reason they forgot to include:
You sell your company for $50 million in Yahoo stock, which over the course of your two year tenure at Yahoo will see a tenfold increase in value up to $500 million and your team will use that wealth to go on to create a disruptive seed-stage funding group called Y Combinator.
Must have been an oversight. I can't imagine 37signals only telling half of these stories to make it better fit with their mantras.