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In the article it says this move by Google is worse than Amazon investing in businesses and stealing info. How is this worse? Google bought the whole company, d

by radres 6y ago

In the article it says this move by Google is worse than Amazon investing in businesses and stealing info. How is this worse? Google bought the whole company, didn't make partial investment. They can do whatever they want with the company.

bondarchuk 6y ago
Buying up and killing competitors seems worse for consumers than merely competing unfairly.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
MereInterest 6y ago
"Worse" doesn't just mean "worse for the companies involved", it can also mean "worse for society". The net result of Google continually buying startups and shutting down the projects is that fewer products receive long-term support, receive any iterative improvements, or can be relied upon to exist later.
- hammock 6y ago
  And they paid a lot of money to do that (as much as it was worth, at least), which was parent company's point. Whereas Amazon did not- they made only a partial investment in order the kill the entire thing. That full Google money (fairly, it could be argued) compensates the destruction you describe and allows the recipient of the money to do something else productive.
- Axsuul 6y ago
  It's still too early to say and we don't have enough visibility. Pairing North's tech with Google's distribution would expand the reach and potential of this type of product. North could've been running out of money before the acquisition so Google swooping in ensured the tech lived on. These are all plausible outcomes that would end up being "better for society"
- spaetzleesser 6y ago
  That seems to be the problem with increasingly bigger and dominant companies. They kill or buy new competitors before they can get traction. In the end society as a whole loses big time because a lot of innovation gets lost. I really hope there will be a trend where companies beyond a certain size get viewed as a negative and discouraged.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Nasrudith 6y ago
  How so? The company was already dying on its own, Google only vultured and bailed them out from bankruptcy. The product was a "mutant" trying new things that wasn't viable in the end.
TAForObvReasons 6y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23690967 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23690967 discussion of the acquisition itself. Given how much was raised by the company itself (~$200M according to https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/north-8daa https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/north-8daa) the acquisition seems like Google providing an exit opportunity for the company and its investors, arguably much better for the ecosystem than what Amazon does
dade_ 6y ago
It’s a terrible article, but I wasn’t aware that they were bought. This is very expensive R&D, and being bought out by the FAANG is one of the very few positive outcomes for a hardware startup. Hopefully they did it for the money.
- TheMblabla 6y ago
  iirc North did not make any money off the aquisition, as they were failing and Google bought them out for roughly the amount of capital previously invested.

by radres 6y ago

bondarchuk 6y ago

Buying up and killing competitors seems worse for consumers than merely competing unfairly.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

MereInterest 6y ago

"Worse" doesn't just mean "worse for the companies involved", it can also mean "worse for society". The net result of Google continually buying startups and shutting down the projects is that fewer products receive long-term support, receive any iterative improvements, or can be relied upon to exist later.

hammock 6y ago
And they paid a lot of money to do that (as much as it was worth, at least), which was parent company's point. Whereas Amazon did not- they made only a partial investment in order the kill the entire thing. That full Google money (fairly, it could be argued) compensates the destruction you describe and allows the recipient of the money to do something else productive.
Axsuul 6y ago
It's still too early to say and we don't have enough visibility. Pairing North's tech with Google's distribution would expand the reach and potential of this type of product. North could've been running out of money before the acquisition so Google swooping in ensured the tech lived on. These are all plausible outcomes that would end up being "better for society"
spaetzleesser 6y ago
That seems to be the problem with increasingly bigger and dominant companies. They kill or buy new competitors before they can get traction. In the end society as a whole loses big time because a lot of innovation gets lost. I really hope there will be a trend where companies beyond a certain size get viewed as a negative and discouraged.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Nasrudith 6y ago
How so? The company was already dying on its own, Google only vultured and bailed them out from bankruptcy. The product was a "mutant" trying new things that wasn't viable in the end.

TAForObvReasons 6y ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23690967 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23690967 discussion of the acquisition itself. Given how much was raised by the company itself (~$200M according to https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/north-8daa https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/north-8daa) the acquisition seems like Google providing an exit opportunity for the company and its investors, arguably much better for the ecosystem than what Amazon does

dade_ 6y ago

It’s a terrible article, but I wasn’t aware that they were bought. This is very expensive R&D, and being bought out by the FAANG is one of the very few positive outcomes for a hardware startup. Hopefully they did it for the money.

TheMblabla 6y ago
iirc North did not make any money off the aquisition, as they were failing and Google bought them out for roughly the amount of capital previously invested.