5 ms·

Anyone else feel that these quotes have been cherry-picked to support 37 signals business philosophy?

solutionyogi 15y ago
Completely agree. Other than the quote about Grand Central ("At the end of the day, more users were definitely better off due to the acquisition."), all of them paint the acquisition in negative manner. But I guess it's not surprising. There are far more stories about acquisition gone wrong instead of acquisition gone right.
- jshen 15y ago
  mediabistro "I consider myself lucky. That was not the case with our new owner. Alan Meckler is very much an entrepreneur and he told me early on he learned the hard way to listen to the instincts of the founding entrepreneur after an acquisition. "
- dagw 15y ago
  There are far more stories about acquisition gone wrong instead of acquisition gone right. Don't you think that that might be due to the fact that stories where things simply worked out more or less as planned are very dull to tell and hear.
ry0ohki 15y ago
That's the whole point, this series of articles isn't an unbiased documentary about acquisitions. 37Signals likes to "prove" that they are right with articles about their way of doing things. It wouldn't shock me at all if one day they sold their company and then wrote a post about the way they sold and who they sold it to was completely different then all these other cases, etc...
- jtbigwoo 15y ago
  * It wouldn't shock me at all if one day they sold their company...* They've already sold part of it (to Jeff Bezos) and they'll inevitably sell more of it when one of them gets old/bored/etc.
ohashi 15y ago
And the last line that things were condensed and edited. Condensed, ok, edited? wtf. It doesn't feel intellectually honest as a blog post.
briggsbio 15y ago
Consider the source. Jason Fried is very proud of 37 signals, and is very vocal about bootstrapping and not "building to sell." And rightly so. He's built 37 signals into an incredible company, in my opinion.

Completely agree. Other than the quote about Grand Central ("At the end of the day, more users were definitely better off due to the acquisition."), all of them paint the acquisition in negative manner. But I guess it's not surprising. There are far more stories about acquisition gone wrong instead of acquisition gone right.

jshen 15y ago
mediabistro "I consider myself lucky. That was not the case with our new owner. Alan Meckler is very much an entrepreneur and he told me early on he learned the hard way to listen to the instincts of the founding entrepreneur after an acquisition. "
dagw 15y ago
There are far more stories about acquisition gone wrong instead of acquisition gone right. Don't you think that that might be due to the fact that stories where things simply worked out more or less as planned are very dull to tell and hear.

ry0ohki 15y ago

That's the whole point, this series of articles isn't an unbiased documentary about acquisitions. 37Signals likes to "prove" that they are right with articles about their way of doing things. It wouldn't shock me at all if one day they sold their company and then wrote a post about the way they sold and who they sold it to was completely different then all these other cases, etc...

jtbigwoo 15y ago
* It wouldn't shock me at all if one day they sold their company...* They've already sold part of it (to Jeff Bezos) and they'll inevitably sell more of it when one of them gets old/bored/etc.

ohashi 15y ago

And the last line that things were condensed and edited. Condensed, ok, edited? wtf. It doesn't feel intellectually honest as a blog post.

briggsbio 15y ago

Consider the source. Jason Fried is very proud of 37 signals, and is very vocal about bootstrapping and not "building to sell." And rightly so. He's built 37 signals into an incredible company, in my opinion.