4 ms·

The phrasing makes it seem like Yik Yak itself is not being acquired. Is that a thing that ever happens? I doubt square is interested in their tech anyways. I'

The phrasing makes it seem like Yik Yak itself is not being acquired. Is that a thing that ever happens? I doubt square is interested in their tech anyways. I've heard that the Atlanta tech scene is dominated by business types rather then techies. It wouldn't surprise me if leadership is selling off most their engineering team and planning to outsource as needed from here on out.

mehrdada 10y ago
> Is that a thing that ever happens? Yes. If you acquire a company, you assume all their liabilities as well as the assets. You might want to just buy the assets and have the acquisition owners dissolve it themselves to keep the liabilities at bay.
CydeWeys 10y ago
Yeah, and it's so common there's a phrase for it: "acquihire". When a company (or even just its team) is acquired for the engineers themselves, not for any existing code, product, or business.
alistproducer2 10y ago
>I've heard that the Atlanta tech scene is dominated by business types... In ATL, can confirm. That's not to say there aren't good engineers here.
- sdflkd 10y ago
  Can you speak more on the ATL tech scene? I've always been interested.
  - frogstomp19 10y ago
    Not OP but I'm a software engineer working for a startup in ATL. I'm not sure how we have a reputation for being "dominated by business types", but we do have a relatively high contingent of fintech and b2b companies here (our only unicorn, Kabbage, plus several others like Square, Salesloft, Salesforce). I think though that our pool of engineering talent is relatively high - I'd guess it's the most likely landing spot for good engineers from the southeast.
    - ynniv 10y ago
      Don't forget AirWatch on the unicorns list. http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/blog/atlantech/2014/03/unicorns-in-atlanta-a-look-at-atlanta-s-billion.html http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/blog/atlantech/2014/03/un...
    - ithinkinstereo 10y ago
      I think by "business types" the OP means that most of the tech/startup scene consists of people more on the business-side: marketers, salespeople, general "hustlers", etc., rather than technical hackers.
    - billyhoffman 10y ago
      > only unicorn Kabbage Uhhh Let me introduce you to a little company called Internet Security Systems. $1.3B+ acquisition by IBM.
      - frogstomp19 10y ago
        I could be wrong here but my understanding is if a company is acquired they WERE a unicorn (if the acquisition was for $1B+) but they aren't a unicorn after the acquisition.
        billyhoffman 10y ago
        I go the other way. Your valuation means jack until you are acquired . It's just some VCs thinking you've built $1 billion business. For example YikYak being valued at $400M. Actually getting acquired for $1 billion... now that's special and rare
    - charlescearl 10y ago
      Mailchimp?
      - FrobozzElectric 10y ago
        I would imagine MC would qualify as a unicorn. Off topic - I always get such bizarre vibes when I interact with anyone from MC or hear of others' interactions with MC employees (ATL here).
  - alistproducer2 10y ago
    From my experience going to meetups and seeing the kind of job postings that get thrown up out here, there's just more of an "enterprise" mindset here. A lot less "hard" tech being pursued. I think it's because there's not a lot of VC money (relative to the west coast and Boston/N.Y) so startups need to be more focused on generating revenue sooner. No long runways out here (for the most part). This seems to select for business that find cash generating opportunities as opposed to chasing "changing the world."
    - sdflkd 10y ago
      Sounds like business plans I can get behind. I find it hard to believe the large-scale goals that are common in SV.
  - wuliwong 10y ago
    Also not OP but I am an ATL engineer: I moved here from Philadelphia and was surprised that from an engineer's perspective the tech scene was significantly better in ATL. There were more jobs at more interesting companies. Obviously this is anecdotal from one job search 5 years ago. Philly might also be surprisingly poor. One cool company here is BitPay. Not sure what they are valued at these days but they are a big name in the bitcoin world. I think they have some solid engineering there. I worked with Oracle for a couple years here right after they acquired a company called Vitrue for $300 million. It's not unicorn status but that was one of several acquisitions around that time. Acquisitions like that in Philly were much more rare. There are a lot of huge corporations here which can continually spin off startups and Georgia Tech is a good source of new engineering talent. I think Atlanta has a healthy tech scene but not one focused in headline grabbing areas.
    - sdflkd 10y ago
      Thanks for the info!

mehrdada 10y ago

> Is that a thing that ever happens? Yes. If you acquire a company, you assume all their liabilities as well as the assets. You might want to just buy the assets and have the acquisition owners dissolve it themselves to keep the liabilities at bay.

CydeWeys 10y ago

Yeah, and it's so common there's a phrase for it: "acquihire". When a company (or even just its team) is acquired for the engineers themselves, not for any existing code, product, or business.

alistproducer2 10y ago

>I've heard that the Atlanta tech scene is dominated by business types... In ATL, can confirm. That's not to say there aren't good engineers here.

sdflkd 10y ago
Can you speak more on the ATL tech scene? I've always been interested.
- frogstomp19 10y ago
  Not OP but I'm a software engineer working for a startup in ATL. I'm not sure how we have a reputation for being "dominated by business types", but we do have a relatively high contingent of fintech and b2b companies here (our only unicorn, Kabbage, plus several others like Square, Salesloft, Salesforce). I think though that our pool of engineering talent is relatively high - I'd guess it's the most likely landing spot for good engineers from the southeast.
  - ynniv 10y ago
    Don't forget AirWatch on the unicorns list. http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/blog/atlantech/2014/03/unicorns-in-atlanta-a-look-at-atlanta-s-billion.html http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/blog/atlantech/2014/03/un...
  - ithinkinstereo 10y ago
    I think by "business types" the OP means that most of the tech/startup scene consists of people more on the business-side: marketers, salespeople, general "hustlers", etc., rather than technical hackers.
  - billyhoffman 10y ago
    > only unicorn Kabbage Uhhh Let me introduce you to a little company called Internet Security Systems. $1.3B+ acquisition by IBM.
    - frogstomp19 10y ago
      I could be wrong here but my understanding is if a company is acquired they WERE a unicorn (if the acquisition was for $1B+) but they aren't a unicorn after the acquisition.
      - billyhoffman 10y ago
        I go the other way. Your valuation means jack until you are acquired . It's just some VCs thinking you've built $1 billion business. For example YikYak being valued at $400M. Actually getting acquired for $1 billion... now that's special and rare
  - charlescearl 10y ago
    Mailchimp?
    - FrobozzElectric 10y ago
      I would imagine MC would qualify as a unicorn. Off topic - I always get such bizarre vibes when I interact with anyone from MC or hear of others' interactions with MC employees (ATL here).
- alistproducer2 10y ago
  From my experience going to meetups and seeing the kind of job postings that get thrown up out here, there's just more of an "enterprise" mindset here. A lot less "hard" tech being pursued. I think it's because there's not a lot of VC money (relative to the west coast and Boston/N.Y) so startups need to be more focused on generating revenue sooner. No long runways out here (for the most part). This seems to select for business that find cash generating opportunities as opposed to chasing "changing the world."
  - sdflkd 10y ago
    Sounds like business plans I can get behind. I find it hard to believe the large-scale goals that are common in SV.
- wuliwong 10y ago
  Also not OP but I am an ATL engineer: I moved here from Philadelphia and was surprised that from an engineer's perspective the tech scene was significantly better in ATL. There were more jobs at more interesting companies. Obviously this is anecdotal from one job search 5 years ago. Philly might also be surprisingly poor. One cool company here is BitPay. Not sure what they are valued at these days but they are a big name in the bitcoin world. I think they have some solid engineering there. I worked with Oracle for a couple years here right after they acquired a company called Vitrue for $300 million. It's not unicorn status but that was one of several acquisitions around that time. Acquisitions like that in Philly were much more rare. There are a lot of huge corporations here which can continually spin off startups and Georgia Tech is a good source of new engineering talent. I think Atlanta has a healthy tech scene but not one focused in headline grabbing areas.
  - sdflkd 10y ago
    Thanks for the info!