5 ms·

Tech Companies Family Tree. Links between company founders and acquisitions

78 points by iamwil 15y ago

nhebb 15y ago
They left out a pretty major one - Valve.
joshuacc 15y ago
Original source: http://mashable.com/2011/07/19/tech-companies-infographic/ http://mashable.com/2011/07/19/tech-companies-infographic/
leelin 15y ago
Very cool! There seems to be at least one big missing piece: D. E. Shaw & Co. That would have spun off Juno via Charles Ardai (bought by NetZero?), Amazon via Jeff Bezos, Fog Creek for Joel Spolsky, Farsight Financial Services, and probably a few more that I can't remember just now. (Art of Problem Solving and Two Sigma are significant but aren't in tech).
deleted 15y ago
[deleted]
eugenejen 15y ago
I remember when I was a teenager in 80's there are so many family trees of different British Rock bands was listed. I am wondering someone is going to dig data from LinkedIn, Venture capital fund portfolio history and SEC record to draw a family tree of all technology companies around the world.
a-priori 15y ago
Kevin Rose used to work for PayPal? His Wikipedia page doesn't mention this.
jpdoctor 15y ago
Even more interesting: Links between acquiring company execs who are limiteds in the venture funds of the VCs who funded the acquiree. It's a huge undisclosed conflict of interest that screws the shareholders of the acquiring company, so don't expect to see it graphed out anytime soon.
- Timothee 15y ago
  I'm assuming you're talking about examples like Google acquiring YouTube, where Sequoia was investor in both and was said by some people to have influenced the deal to see ROI from YouTube? Do you have examples like this? This would definitely be interesting. edit: note that I mention the Google/YouTube example from something I remember reading about a few years ago. I don't know what exactly happened…
  - jpdoctor 15y ago
    Not exactly. Look at it this way: Some financial wonk inside Google did a bunch of the due diligence for the acquisition. Now suppose that wonk was a limited in Sequoia: He/She would stand to make a pile of money from the acquisition of a (then) profitless company. How would it affect the analysis? Now go back through acquisitions that made even less financial sense, like Ebay acquiring Skype for $2.6B. A valid question from the shareholders: Who in the decision-making tree held stock (via a venture fund) in Skype? I think a lot of the really dumb acquisitions start to make a lot more sense as to how they got completed.
MartinCron 15y ago
Notably absent: Yahoo!
denysonique 15y ago
Going to print and make a poster.

78 points by iamwil 15y ago

nhebb 15y ago

They left out a pretty major one - Valve.

Original source: http://mashable.com/2011/07/19/tech-companies-infographic/ http://mashable.com/2011/07/19/tech-companies-infographic/

leelin 15y ago

Very cool! There seems to be at least one big missing piece: D. E. Shaw & Co. That would have spun off Juno via Charles Ardai (bought by NetZero?), Amazon via Jeff Bezos, Fog Creek for Joel Spolsky, Farsight Financial Services, and probably a few more that I can't remember just now. (Art of Problem Solving and Two Sigma are significant but aren't in tech).

deleted 15y ago

[deleted]

eugenejen 15y ago

I remember when I was a teenager in 80's there are so many family trees of different British Rock bands was listed. I am wondering someone is going to dig data from LinkedIn, Venture capital fund portfolio history and SEC record to draw a family tree of all technology companies around the world.

a-priori 15y ago

Kevin Rose used to work for PayPal? His Wikipedia page doesn't mention this.

jpdoctor 15y ago

Even more interesting: Links between acquiring company execs who are limiteds in the venture funds of the VCs who funded the acquiree. It's a huge undisclosed conflict of interest that screws the shareholders of the acquiring company, so don't expect to see it graphed out anytime soon.

Timothee 15y ago
I'm assuming you're talking about examples like Google acquiring YouTube, where Sequoia was investor in both and was said by some people to have influenced the deal to see ROI from YouTube? Do you have examples like this? This would definitely be interesting. edit: note that I mention the Google/YouTube example from something I remember reading about a few years ago. I don't know what exactly happened…
- jpdoctor 15y ago
  Not exactly. Look at it this way: Some financial wonk inside Google did a bunch of the due diligence for the acquisition. Now suppose that wonk was a limited in Sequoia: He/She would stand to make a pile of money from the acquisition of a (then) profitless company. How would it affect the analysis? Now go back through acquisitions that made even less financial sense, like Ebay acquiring Skype for $2.6B. A valid question from the shareholders: Who in the decision-making tree held stock (via a venture fund) in Skype? I think a lot of the really dumb acquisitions start to make a lot more sense as to how they got completed.

MartinCron 15y ago

Notably absent: Yahoo!

denysonique 15y ago

Going to print and make a poster.