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Watching an acquirer ruin your company

startupwin.kelsus.com

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Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#81

Post by lovich »

hinkley wrote: post #26
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #18

> As soon as Sphero completed the acquisition, bringing Kelsus in as an app developer, two things happened: 1) Sphero told us they needed fully revamped iOS and Android apps six months later with no schedule wiggle room. 2) Sphero spent the first two of those six months organizing a team on their side and hashing out requirements for the new apps. This exact pattern has preceded every mismanagement disaster I've ever…

> and the death spiral begins. The death spiral becomes visible, really. The gun had already been fired, the body just hadn’t hit the ground yet. I must say these failure modes are much worse than the ones I’ve experienced, which maybe I should be grateful for, I’d have to think about this. Generally I’ve seen a slower burn, where the remaining fiscal year plays out with soothing tones and promises of not changing th…

> I don’t know which business school teaches people to say “ah can you smell that fresh mountain air” while they have their hands wrapped tightly around your neck …

It’s all of them and the higher you get into management the more apparent it is. They sell a system of meritocracy where those who work the hardest get the rewards. Then you get into management and working side by side with people whose first job out of college was as a VP, who explain to you how they are forcing the newly hired manager to fire someone at random to “make sure they have a backbone”

Software engineers have been tricked into thinking they are part of the in club because they are paid well enough to have the lifestyle that the middle class had between ww2 and the 80s, but we are being systematically stripped of the value we bring.

If this wasn’t true then we wouldn’t be able to point towards recent events like jobs setting up a hiring cartel to depress our wages

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#82

Post by midnightclubbed »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #18

> As soon as Sphero completed the acquisition, bringing Kelsus in as an app developer, two things happened: 1) Sphero told us they needed fully revamped iOS and Android apps six months later with no schedule wiggle room. 2) Sphero spent the first two of those six months organizing a team on their side and hashing out requirements for the new apps. This exact pattern has preceded every mismanagement disaster I've ever…

The story fills in all the reasons why ‘management’ start at #1.

Company A buys company B for a product it believes in. Company A knows that company B was incapable of getting product to finish line, which is why they sold out. No problem though, company A has done this before…

The managers at company A are assigned to ship product, just like they have before. Managers can’t say “its all good, we’ll give them a couple more devs and leave them to it.” they were told to manage, changes will be expected, planning must happen.

The C level of company A just spent a bunch of money on company B. The product needs to hit positive revenue in 9 months, without positive revenue in 12 months the company will be out of cash. So management are told in no uncertain terms that they have to ship in 6 months.

The contracted developers sign on to a 6 month fixed timeframe and know there will be design tweaks by the new management.

At every stage everyone is doing their job. Everyone is trying to do the right thing for success and to not get fired. Everyone has a problem that can only be fixed by someone at a different level compromising on their quality of work or their personal happiness.

I’m not excusing bad management or execs who looking for a rapid cash-out. Trying to illustrate how a good company can hit the same pattern.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#83

Post by xeromal »

spaetzleesser wrote: post #72
illuminati1911 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Classic. And when you tell incompetent management that 9 women can't deliver a baby in a month, they'll proceed to try with 10 women.

Just take 30 in another country, ideally with 12 hours timezone difference.

Mandatory 10pm phone calls too.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#84

Post by AussieWog93 »

jmyeet wrote: post #13

As soon as someone hands you the check it's no longer "your" company and you should stop thinking of it as such. Only misery lies on that path. I see this on a smaller scale where ICs leave a company and take a copy of "their" code (ask Sergey Aleynikov [1] if that's a good idea). It's not yours. If you ever use it you could face legal consequences. And there's no code I've ever written that I wasn't convinced I coul…

Have you ever started a business before?

Yes, you technically no longer own it once sold, but there's a huge amount of blood, sweat and tears that goes into building something from nothing - not to mention a sense of loyalty to your staff - and you genuinely do want to see it go into good hands and become managed well.

I guess a somewhat leaky analogy would be like giving away a dog you raised to another family and finding out later that they're abusing it. Yes, it's no longer your dog, but you're still going to care deeply about its wellbeing.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#85

Post by danielmarkbruce »

cwillu wrote: post #68
danielmarkbruce wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At google it was repeated that Sergey Brin used to say "all work is throwaway work, it's only the time horizon which is in question".

It's kind trite to say “much is explained”, but… that explains so much about google.

It doesn't really. There is plenty of old code at google, he was just saying it to people who were too scared of doing work they might need to throw away.

The promotion process explains way more of what I think you are getting at.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#86

Post by SicSemperUranus »

Ologn wrote: post #50
cjonas wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dealing with exactly 1 & 2 right now. #3 doesn't really apply in my case because 80% of the devs are budget staffing agency hires. But on that note, I'd add a 4th point: Management panics when they realize they won't make the self imposed deadline and start throwing bodies at the problem. In our case, we went from 2 teams to 8 over night. The very few engineers who actually were capable of shipping features became sw…

Fred Brooks encountered a similar problem as a project manager at IBM in the early 1960s, working on the software for the System/360. In 1975 he wrote The Mythical Man Month about the experience. He said "adding manpower to a late software project makes it later". The increased communication needed was one reason. About half a century later, most businesses have still not learned these lessons.

I've tried and failed many times to get my boss to understand this.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#87

Post by usrn »

cjonas wrote: post #37
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #18

> As soon as Sphero completed the acquisition, bringing Kelsus in as an app developer, two things happened: 1) Sphero told us they needed fully revamped iOS and Android apps six months later with no schedule wiggle room. 2) Sphero spent the first two of those six months organizing a team on their side and hashing out requirements for the new apps. This exact pattern has preceded every mismanagement disaster I've ever…

Dealing with exactly 1 & 2 right now. #3 doesn't really apply in my case because 80% of the devs are budget staffing agency hires. But on that note, I'd add a 4th point: Management panics when they realize they won't make the self imposed deadline and start throwing bodies at the problem. In our case, we went from 2 teams to 8 over night. The very few engineers who actually were capable of shipping features became sw…

>8hr "planning" sessions

One place I was at had quarterly 3 day planning sessions. That was something else.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#88

Post by quickthrower2 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #18

> As soon as Sphero completed the acquisition, bringing Kelsus in as an app developer, two things happened: 1) Sphero told us they needed fully revamped iOS and Android apps six months later with no schedule wiggle room. 2) Sphero spent the first two of those six months organizing a team on their side and hashing out requirements for the new apps. This exact pattern has preceded every mismanagement disaster I've ever…

Word to the wise: start looking for a new job when that clock starts ticking. You may decide to stay but great to have something else to parachute into as an option.

Second thing: you can change jobs as often as you want. I am for loyalty but you can’t know what a job will be like until you work it.

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#89

Post by WalterBright »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #18

> As soon as Sphero completed the acquisition, bringing Kelsus in as an app developer, two things happened: 1) Sphero told us they needed fully revamped iOS and Android apps six months later with no schedule wiggle room. 2) Sphero spent the first two of those six months organizing a team on their side and hashing out requirements for the new apps. This exact pattern has preceded every mismanagement disaster I've ever…

Start your own company and do it right!

Re: Watching an acquirer ruin your company

#90

Post by sverhagen »

quickthrower2 wrote: post #88
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #18

> As soon as Sphero completed the acquisition, bringing Kelsus in as an app developer, two things happened: 1) Sphero told us they needed fully revamped iOS and Android apps six months later with no schedule wiggle room. 2) Sphero spent the first two of those six months organizing a team on their side and hashing out requirements for the new apps. This exact pattern has preceded every mismanagement disaster I've ever…

Word to the wise: start looking for a new job when that clock starts ticking. You may decide to stay but great to have something else to parachute into as an option. Second thing: you can change jobs as often as you want. I am for loyalty but you can’t know what a job will be like until you work it.

This may be good advise, but I hate it. Personally, I couldn't put my heart into the job hunt, while at the same time giving my best at the current job. In other words: just the step of starting to search for a job is for me synonymous to accepting defeat at the current job.
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