The original company could have argued that the value received for its assets was less than its liabilities. It’s perfectly legal, but way overused in tech (whe

The original company could have argued that the value received for its assets was less than its liabilities. It’s perfectly legal, but way overused in tech (where assets are overwhelmingly in the form of IP without an easily established market value). This type of uncertainty does lead to a situation where potential customers are wary of using a startup service — I can’t build a business off your service if I don’t have confidence your company will want me as a customer in 3 years. Ultimately I think we’re witnessing the final consolidation of the software industry. I expect the cloud/software industry of the next 30 years to start to look much like telecom over the last 30 years. Probably worse for consumers short term, but ultimately the plumbing isn’t all that interesting and it will hopefully enable the next round of innovation.