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> Over the next few years, Mapbox tried to find success in a variety of industries: journalism, social media, travel, ect. We never hit numbers that were big en

by mikl 4y ago

> Over the next few years, Mapbox tried to find success in a variety of industries: journalism, social media, travel, ect. We never hit numbers that were big enough for our investors. In the process, we abandoned our focus on Open Source and Open data. Then, as is the case with many mapping companies, Mapbox shifted focus to the auto industry. My fear of loss of control fully materialized at this point. I’m a lifelong bicycle commuter, and I think cars are unequivocally bad. I wish people better understood what taking VC money means: trading control for money. While employees might _feel_ the company is still theirs, that’s only true to the extent that they hold majority control of the board of directors. It’s certainly possible to take VC money and keep your original vision intact. But only if your original vision works well enough to keep your shareholders happy. Failing that, the board will push management to compromise with the ideals as much as needed to get a return on investment.

secondcoming 4y ago
It also means getting your monthly payslip. Not a minor thing.
- julianeon 4y ago
  I sort of disagree - and I think most VC's would too. The point of VC funding is not to pay salaries, really. If you squint it seems close enough, but it sets a terrible precedent that most VC's wouldn't want: looking at venture funding as how the company pays its bills. That's a natural way to read your statement - but also counterproductive & undesirable. The point of VC funding is to take a profitable business and allow it to scale. Ideally the company could turn $1 into $1.25, before funding; that is, ideally it's making money. It should be able to pay some bills. The VC funding is helping it to make more money, faster, and shortening the loop from sales -> payment -> expansion. It's helping it to leapfrog its competitors. That's what that money should be doing. But what if it hasn't found product-market fit? Well, it's still not good to look at the VC's as "where our money comes from." That source is supposed to be customers, and you never want the focus to stray too far from there.
  - blowski 4y ago
    > The point of VC funding is to take a profitable business and allow it to scale. There’s a heck of a lot of VC money funding only the dream of a profitable business.
joecot 4y ago
Once a company takes VC funding or a buyout, or makes an IPO, any ethical promise they've ever made is null and void. Later when choices are made outside of their control, they wash their hands and say it's not their fault. But the founders break those promises at the time they take that money, when they willingly gave up their control. And the point of VC funding is always a buyout later, where all founder control will be lost anyway. Once you take VC, the goal of the company is never to make the world better or empower their employees. The goal is now solely to make money, by any means it can. The funders will allow you to do that ethically, at first. When you're not making their return as fast as they'd like, which you never will, the ethics go out the window.
- skybrian 4y ago
  You're making a big assumption that making the world better isn't about helping paying customers.
- Aeolun 4y ago
  > where all founder control will be lost anyway Unless you are Facebook, Tesla or SpaceX?
  - M2Ys4U 4y ago
    Let's be real, the likelihood of that is, for all intents and purposes, zero.
brailsafe 4y ago
Employees should never feel like the company is theirs. Unless you have a real seat at the table, you should assume you have no influence over the business. That's what being an employee is (with no actual shares). You give up the risk by being an employee, and your only negotiating power is leaving.
- roguecoder 4y ago
  That sounds like you feel pretty helpless. Personally, I find that I have numerous avenues of negotiating power, even without unionization: 1. Do I recommend the company to my network? I can make it a lot cheaper or more expensive to hire. 2. How do I spend my time? All my technical choices will make certain changes easier down the line, and others harder. I work hard to understand the business context & help those choices serve our shared goals, but the emphasis there can be on "shared". 3. How much do I streamline my own work? I can work efficiently, or I can wait for that build to finish and that PR to be approved and merged before I move on to the next thing. This can be a particularly effective way to incentive investment in a platform team & build tools, if I'm not allowed to just fix them myself. 4. What do I collaborate on with my coworkers? We can pick priorities we care about, and negotiate together for specific improvements. I've gotten more vacation time, better computers, bigger screens, paid on-calls and time to fix bugs all just by talking with people about what's hard about our work. 5. Insisting on pushing improvements to open source software upstream if we are going to use the libraries at all. The company could decide it wants to write everything entirely in house, but as long as we are using open source software I personally only make changes to it that we are going to push back to the community. And I am sure there are more: those are just the ones I've used recently.
  - ClumsyPilot 4y ago
    Yhose are all nice when negotiating working from home or something similarly minor - but when it comes to foundamental business model, these things are unlikely to move the needle.
    - brailsafe 4y ago

by mikl 4y ago

secondcoming 4y ago

It also means getting your monthly payslip. Not a minor thing.

julianeon 4y ago
I sort of disagree - and I think most VC's would too. The point of VC funding is not to pay salaries, really. If you squint it seems close enough, but it sets a terrible precedent that most VC's wouldn't want: looking at venture funding as how the company pays its bills. That's a natural way to read your statement - but also counterproductive & undesirable. The point of VC funding is to take a profitable business and allow it to scale. Ideally the company could turn $1 into $1.25, before funding; that is, ideally it's making money. It should be able to pay some bills. The VC funding is helping it to make more money, faster, and shortening the loop from sales -> payment -> expansion. It's helping it to leapfrog its competitors. That's what that money should be doing. But what if it hasn't found product-market fit? Well, it's still not good to look at the VC's as "where our money comes from." That source is supposed to be customers, and you never want the focus to stray too far from there.
- blowski 4y ago
  > The point of VC funding is to take a profitable business and allow it to scale. There’s a heck of a lot of VC money funding only the dream of a profitable business.

joecot 4y ago

Once a company takes VC funding or a buyout, or makes an IPO, any ethical promise they've ever made is null and void. Later when choices are made outside of their control, they wash their hands and say it's not their fault. But the founders break those promises at the time they take that money, when they willingly gave up their control. And the point of VC funding is always a buyout later, where all founder control will be lost anyway. Once you take VC, the goal of the company is never to make the world better or empower their employees. The goal is now solely to make money, by any means it can. The funders will allow you to do that ethically, at first. When you're not making their return as fast as they'd like, which you never will, the ethics go out the window.

skybrian 4y ago
You're making a big assumption that making the world better isn't about helping paying customers.
Aeolun 4y ago
> where all founder control will be lost anyway Unless you are Facebook, Tesla or SpaceX?
- M2Ys4U 4y ago
  Let's be real, the likelihood of that is, for all intents and purposes, zero.

brailsafe 4y ago

Employees should never feel like the company is theirs. Unless you have a real seat at the table, you should assume you have no influence over the business. That's what being an employee is (with no actual shares). You give up the risk by being an employee, and your only negotiating power is leaving.

roguecoder 4y ago
That sounds like you feel pretty helpless. Personally, I find that I have numerous avenues of negotiating power, even without unionization: 1. Do I recommend the company to my network? I can make it a lot cheaper or more expensive to hire. 2. How do I spend my time? All my technical choices will make certain changes easier down the line, and others harder. I work hard to understand the business context & help those choices serve our shared goals, but the emphasis there can be on "shared". 3. How much do I streamline my own work? I can work efficiently, or I can wait for that build to finish and that PR to be approved and merged before I move on to the next thing. This can be a particularly effective way to incentive investment in a platform team & build tools, if I'm not allowed to just fix them myself. 4. What do I collaborate on with my coworkers? We can pick priorities we care about, and negotiate together for specific improvements. I've gotten more vacation time, better computers, bigger screens, paid on-calls and time to fix bugs all just by talking with people about what's hard about our work. 5. Insisting on pushing improvements to open source software upstream if we are going to use the libraries at all. The company could decide it wants to write everything entirely in house, but as long as we are using open source software I personally only make changes to it that we are going to push back to the community. And I am sure there are more: those are just the ones I've used recently.
- ClumsyPilot 4y ago
  Yhose are all nice when negotiating working from home or something similarly minor - but when it comes to foundamental business model, these things are unlikely to move the needle.
  - brailsafe 4y ago