Don't Talk to Corp Dev (2015)
paulgraham.com
Don't Talk to Corp Dev (2015)
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Re: Don't Talk to Corp Dev (2015)
#2Never heard of this and I'm not sure how common this is at all.
Anyone else has experience with this?
Re: Don't Talk to Corp Dev (2015)
#3Never heard of this and I'm not sure how common this is at all. Anyone else has experience with this?
You mean you haven't heard of "corporate development" in general or are you referring to something specific here?
Re: Don't Talk to Corp Dev (2015)
#4I was courted by corp dev from a big public company. It was quite an experience -- events, dinners, wine, private meetings, large groups of the corp folks hanging on every word. They got pretty pushy, demanding to know trade secrets to keep going with a negotiation. At the end of it I pulled the plug because it was clear they were not working in our interest. (The word "pillage" comes to mind.)
The experience was nice to have, but as the essay claims, it ultimately was a poor use of time.
Re: Don't Talk to Corp Dev (2015)
#5This is out of date. At this point, many larger corp dev teams act like a recruiting team for acquisitions. They find leads and pass them to VPs
Re: Don't Talk to Corp Dev (2015)
#6He actually didn't even cover one of the worst parts about the whole process - fake buyers who just want to steal your tech. I was working at a startup with a ground breaking product no one had released before, we had shipped hundreds of prototypes and gotten good reviews and had plenty of orders, but board redesigns and setting up a factory assembly line for the production models was eating into our cash and runway. A big company in an adjacent space made it known they were willing to buy us. We set up a data room, gave them tours of the office and technology, intros to all the staff, and they liked everything they saw. Offer never came through. A year later they announced they would be developing a knock off. Entire process just seemed like a way to get internal development info for their own clone they were starting development on.
Amusingly, I've seen this process go the other direction in the finance world. Sometimes an employee will go out and interview with another fintech company, pretend they are willing to jump ship, and pick up as much information on how their competitor works as they can at the fake job interview. Employee then happily continues at the fintech startup with the extra knowledge.
Re: Don't Talk to Corp Dev (2015)
#7Is there a reason he doesn't have HTTPS on his site? Firefox throws up a giant warning when I try to visit.
Re: Don't Talk to Corp Dev (2015)
#8This is good advice (though it only needed to be a couple of paragraphs long)
Re: Don't Talk to Corp Dev (2015)
#9This is from 2015? Wow. My memory had it much earlier than that. Feels like the world has changed a lot since then.
I wonder if pg would revise the advice today, given how big M&A has become. I suspect it's all still relevant, except that actual deals are more common and prices are higher. That might change the balance, but the general description of what you're dealing with is still valid.
Companies constantly flirting with acquisition though... I feel like this sort of thing is way more prevalent now.
Re: Don't Talk to Corp Dev (2015)
#10I think I've really gotten into the habit of disagreeing with Paul Graham's blogs lately but this one felt different. Felt like a lot of practical, common sense advice that is just barely beyond the horizon that most people consider. Of course, it won't apply in every situation but it felt hard to disagree with the overall sentiment.
Note: I say I've been disagreeing with him lately and, of course, this blog wasn't written "lately." So maybe that says something.