4 ms·

That's because they weren't acquired so they don't have to write editorial spin.

yeukhon 9y ago
Is that a requirement? Let say a big startup announces to cease operation with hundreds of paid customers. I think it is totally acceptable for a short announcement like Mapzen’s, but with a seperate page about migration and refund. Then the next is making sure everyone in the company will help taking customer calls. Unless stated otherwise, I think we can assume whenever a company goes out of business, the reason has to be $$. There are special cases like political pressure etc.
daenney 9y ago
Plenty of startups fail and write massive articles about how everything they did was amazing, they were going to cure cancer and all the world's ailments, but something fell through and now they're dead and how it's mostly everyone else's fault. I've seen far more spin around shutdown than acquisitions. The latest of such beauty to come out of the tech world is Otto's shutdown: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16047382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16047382. And one of their engineer's reply to that spin: https://medium.com/@ben_73928/as-one-of-the-team-members-let-go-i-dont-share-the-same-gratitude-posted-by-some-of-the-team-4029737df4ea https://medium.com/@ben_73928/as-one-of-the-team-members-let...
- hayksaakian 9y ago
  Otto was acquired if i remember correctly
  - alex_young 9y ago
    Otto was an acqui-startup right?
    - mikeryan 9y ago
      That was the driverless truck startup acquired by Uber and currently a shit show of a lawsuit. Different thing.
  - jonknee 9y ago
    Different Otto, this one was a $700 home door lock.
- samstave 9y ago
  Wasn’t there a spoof site that was a “shutdown spin generator” some time ago that would auto generate the blurb about the reasons for your shutdown... It was posted on HN some time back.
  - repsilat 9y ago
    I think it was just an aggregator: https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com
    - samstave 9y ago
      I think that’s it, but my journey to confirm it would be incredible.
  - jerf 9y ago
    You may be thinking of shutdownify: https://web.archive.org/web/20150819204235/http://www.shutdownify.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150819204235/http://www.shutdo... (Note that that's actually the earliest archive that archive.org has of it. Alas, it never actually had a generator.)
    - samstave 9y ago
      That’s the one!
    - adriand 9y ago
      This is pretty amusing. I can't actually tell if this is satire or not. Was this a parody of startups (and shutdown notices) or a legitimate service?
      - samstave 9y ago
        Parody
- Amygaz 9y ago
  Sounds exactly like what FB would write. Thanks for the laugh!
- Nition 9y ago
  Google's announcement that they're scaling back Google Fibre comes to mind: https://fiber.googleblog.com/2016/10/advancing-our-amazing-bet.html https://fiber.googleblog.com/2016/10/advancing-our-amazing-b...
  - dguaraglia 9y ago
    Haha, that announcement became quite the running joke inside of Google, with people generating "advancing our amazing bet" memes whenever a project it tech was deprecated.
untog 9y ago
Oh, plenty still do. It's like a cover letter to send the angel investor you want to back your next frivolous startup.

Is that a requirement? Let say a big startup announces to cease operation with hundreds of paid customers. I think it is totally acceptable for a short announcement like Mapzen’s, but with a seperate page about migration and refund. Then the next is making sure everyone in the company will help taking customer calls. Unless stated otherwise, I think we can assume whenever a company goes out of business, the reason has to be $$. There are special cases like political pressure etc.

daenney 9y ago

Plenty of startups fail and write massive articles about how everything they did was amazing, they were going to cure cancer and all the world's ailments, but something fell through and now they're dead and how it's mostly everyone else's fault. I've seen far more spin around shutdown than acquisitions. The latest of such beauty to come out of the tech world is Otto's shutdown: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16047382 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16047382. And one of their engineer's reply to that spin: https://medium.com/@ben_73928/as-one-of-the-team-members-let-go-i-dont-share-the-same-gratitude-posted-by-some-of-the-team-4029737df4ea https://medium.com/@ben_73928/as-one-of-the-team-members-let...

hayksaakian 9y ago
Otto was acquired if i remember correctly
- alex_young 9y ago
  Otto was an acqui-startup right?
  - mikeryan 9y ago
    That was the driverless truck startup acquired by Uber and currently a shit show of a lawsuit. Different thing.
- jonknee 9y ago
  Different Otto, this one was a $700 home door lock.
samstave 9y ago
Wasn’t there a spoof site that was a “shutdown spin generator” some time ago that would auto generate the blurb about the reasons for your shutdown... It was posted on HN some time back.
- repsilat 9y ago
  I think it was just an aggregator: https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com
  - samstave 9y ago
    I think that’s it, but my journey to confirm it would be incredible.
- jerf 9y ago
  You may be thinking of shutdownify: https://web.archive.org/web/20150819204235/http://www.shutdownify.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20150819204235/http://www.shutdo... (Note that that's actually the earliest archive that archive.org has of it. Alas, it never actually had a generator.)
  - samstave 9y ago
    That’s the one!
  - adriand 9y ago
    This is pretty amusing. I can't actually tell if this is satire or not. Was this a parody of startups (and shutdown notices) or a legitimate service?
    - samstave 9y ago
      Parody
Amygaz 9y ago
Sounds exactly like what FB would write. Thanks for the laugh!
Nition 9y ago
Google's announcement that they're scaling back Google Fibre comes to mind: https://fiber.googleblog.com/2016/10/advancing-our-amazing-bet.html https://fiber.googleblog.com/2016/10/advancing-our-amazing-b...
- dguaraglia 9y ago
  Haha, that announcement became quite the running joke inside of Google, with people generating "advancing our amazing bet" memes whenever a project it tech was deprecated.

untog 9y ago

Oh, plenty still do. It's like a cover letter to send the angel investor you want to back your next frivolous startup.