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Is there a right way to do this? Yes. a. Make it a fully owned subsidiary. b. Don't fuck with it.
by edw519 16y ago
Is there a right way to do this?
Yes.
a. Make it a fully owned subsidiary.
b. Don't fuck with it.
- petervandijck 16y agoThat's what Google did with YouTube, right?
- barredo 16y agoWell, sort-of. I prefer the Amazon-IMDb example
- eps 16y agoDidn't work for Nullsoft, did it?
- tptacek 16y agoCase in point for "don't fuck with it".
- huhtenberg 16y agoFrom what I gather AOL didn't really "fuck" with Nullsoft, they kept working on what they wanted. Justin & Co. got bored being a big corp subsidiary and needing to work on WinAmp (which is what they were acquired for). And so it just didn't really whip llama's ass for them anymore, they escalated and quit. Effectively it was them fucking with AOL, not the other way around.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- thasmin 16y agoAOL shut down Gnutella and WASTE. Certainly the right business move because of they were both lawsuits waiting to happen, but I'd imagine that it disappointed Nullsoft nonetheless.
- hartror 16y agoDo you have some examples of where that has worked in the medium - long term? (i.e longer than the 2-3 year mark most of these founders have bailed out at) I am guessing it can work but founders/entrepreneurs aren't necessarily the best managers and are likely to get bored and be looking for their next startup. As a new owner of a company it seems to make sense to transition the senior management to people who are more suited to managing and running a company rather than those who like building a company. This goes two fold for those companies who have primarily technical founders who are almost always unsuited for the roles in senior management.
- tptacek 16y agoSure: IMDB, Audible, and Zappos. Also, the issue isn't that the founders leave; it's that the energy does. Founders are always going to leave.
- hartror 16y agoBut isn't that the issue? The energy tends to come from the founders so how do you reliably transition away from the founders, whether it is without full company integration or not?
- tptacek 16y agoNo. The issue isn't that the founders leave. It's that the team dies.
- jmathai 16y agoI have to agree with hartror. If the founders leave then what are you left with? It sounds great in theory that a team can keep the motivation and innovation coming but ultimately that's the job of the founders - and founders aren't easily replaced.
- PaulJoslin 16y ago
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- callmeed 16y agoI pray that's the route SF will take with Heroku