> I should have done more diligence on their specific software engineering processes, but instead I assumed because they seemed to be operating like a startup,

> I should have done more diligence on their specific software engineering processes, but instead I assumed because they seemed to be operating like a startup, that they would be able to iterate like a startup. A lot of the product problems were known to the whole Wave team, but we were crippled by a large complex codebase built on poor technical choices and a cumbersome engineering process that prevented fast iteration. This is the first time I've personally read a case that specifically supports Paul Graham's tenet that big companies can't iterate like a start-up. I've experienced it outside tech, but it seems striking to me that even Google struggles here. Thank you. Have you written a formal lessons-learned on this aspect of the acquisition process? How would you evaluate those elements? How could you have side stepped them or mitigated against their consequences (please blue sky this, eg, could you have asked to continue etherpad in-house, the way ChromeOS is sort of competing with Android?)