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Looking through the comments, has anyone has a mundane or positive experience? Or is it always bad? Not anywhere near having this kind of problem, but fascinate

by werber 7y ago

Looking through the comments, has anyone has a mundane or positive experience? Or is it always bad? Not anywhere near having this kind of problem, but fascinated

tim58 7y ago
I've been part of two buyouts, have joined recently bought out teams, a recently IPOed team, and part of four teams looking for a buyer. I'm talking for personal experience from someone mid-career that moves around a lot in the industry. The best buyout experiences are the slow embraces instead of a big bear hug. A slow embrace allows both sides to grow while they learn how to support each other. A big bear hug will suffocate the purchased company while all energy is spent assimilating instead of helping customers.
- werber 7y ago
  When you say slow embrace, do you mean the acquisition happened slowly and with transparency or the acquirer handled it well? This is a problem I’d love to have to deal with tbh
  - 0xFACEFEED 7y ago
    Post-acquisition example: Acquirer has a VP that's pushing the deal. VP makes promises to make the deal seem as attractive as possible (eg: X will improve in Y time). New team is pressured to move quickly. New team uses the honeymoon period to flex all of their political capital. Existing teams get frustrated as their work is de-prioritized/marginalized. Culture clashes happen if new team isn't silo'd from existing teams. And so on...
nugget 7y ago
The more the acquirer leaves you alone, the better it is (usually).
hisnameismanuel 7y ago
I work for a company that is #2 and chasing hard against our #1 competitor. That competitor was bought in the last couple of years and we all thought this would be our chance to go #1 as their head office inevitably screwed it up somehow. That hasn't happened yet. They're still #1, we're still #2, and the gap hasn't closed. The only sign of trouble might be that their product, which was already lagging, hasn't seen a major release in that entire period.

by werber 7y ago

Looking through the comments, has anyone has a mundane or positive experience? Or is it always bad? Not anywhere near having this kind of problem, but fascinated

tim58 7y ago

I've been part of two buyouts, have joined recently bought out teams, a recently IPOed team, and part of four teams looking for a buyer. I'm talking for personal experience from someone mid-career that moves around a lot in the industry. The best buyout experiences are the slow embraces instead of a big bear hug. A slow embrace allows both sides to grow while they learn how to support each other. A big bear hug will suffocate the purchased company while all energy is spent assimilating instead of helping customers.

werber 7y ago
When you say slow embrace, do you mean the acquisition happened slowly and with transparency or the acquirer handled it well? This is a problem I’d love to have to deal with tbh
- 0xFACEFEED 7y ago
  Post-acquisition example: Acquirer has a VP that's pushing the deal. VP makes promises to make the deal seem as attractive as possible (eg: X will improve in Y time). New team is pressured to move quickly. New team uses the honeymoon period to flex all of their political capital. Existing teams get frustrated as their work is de-prioritized/marginalized. Culture clashes happen if new team isn't silo'd from existing teams. And so on...

nugget 7y ago

The more the acquirer leaves you alone, the better it is (usually).

hisnameismanuel 7y ago

I work for a company that is #2 and chasing hard against our #1 competitor. That competitor was bought in the last couple of years and we all thought this would be our chance to go #1 as their head office inevitably screwed it up somehow. That hasn't happened yet. They're still #1, we're still #2, and the gap hasn't closed. The only sign of trouble might be that their product, which was already lagging, hasn't seen a major release in that entire period.