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I'm saddened by what happened to Mapbox. It's such a recurring pattern of organizational transformation: from a small "mission-driven" group building cool shit

I'm saddened by what happened to Mapbox. It's such a recurring pattern of organizational transformation: from a small "mission-driven" group building cool shit that starts taking money (and pressure from investors) and slowly erodes their past core values, changing into a faceless money-making machine subservient to some huge market or industry. In that process most of the original opinionated crowd will slowly rotate out and the more "career"/bureaucratic types will prevail and take over. Maybe unions and workers having more control could curb it? But in such a late stage it sounds almost impossible to achieve. Cars are certainly a problem, but technology has by and far been a great thing, and I would question whether the gaming is really such a positive industry in the end either.

NelsonMinar 4y ago
Unions and Mapbox is a very sore topic and now the subject of a NLRB lawsuit for firing the union organizers. https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/mapbox-sued-firing-union-organizers https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/mapbox-sued-firing-union-... But the union drive came far too late to help the larger problem. The big change happened in 2017 when Softbank invested $164M into MapBox. In retrospect it was far too much money with too many expectations. And with the ugly side effect of salting the earth for any other map startups. It only got worse in 2021 when MapBox's attempt to go public via a SPAC failed. They're plodding along now but it's hard to see what a good final outcome is going to be.
- chx 4y ago
  This is not the first time I see Softbank as a net negative. Too much money loosely controlled. Is there an example of Softbank doing good?
- Doctor_Fegg 4y ago
  > And with the ugly side effect of salting the earth for any other map startups I'm unsure on that. Mapbox built a bunch of good tech (mostly around vector tiles), open-sourced it, and then lost interest in smaller customers in their rush for the petrodollar. This has been genuinely great for bootstrapped map businesses. You can easily list a dozen who are using .mvt tech right now and making a good living out of it. True, it wasn't good for Mapzen. But I can't weep too many tears for something funded with Samsung Accelerator magic money, much though they did hire one of the smartest teams in the business - Softbank vs Samsung is not a battle I can bring myself to care about. I 100% agree with you that Mapbox went too far, too fast. But on balance I think their trajectory has (unintentionally) been good for wider mapping tech.
- erlich 4y ago
  Why do people always think it’s a good idea to unionize when a company is fighting for survival?
  - Tostino 4y ago
    Because the people doing the work want a say in the overall direction of the company?
    - xvedejas 4y ago
      This sounds like a case for different corporate governance, yeah?
  - Apocryphon 4y ago
    Maybe because the leadership is actively undermining the survival? From this case alone, it seems possible that the Mapbox leadership is chasing a hopeless strategy by focusing on the auto industry, which is dominated by other much larger companies.
    - erlich 4y ago
      And a committee of employees has a better strategy for profitability? I don’t see it. The employees have dramatically less incentive than the owners and management to earn the owners an adequate return on their investment.
      - Apocryphon 4y ago
        Perhaps the employees who are actually executing a faulty business strategy can see its first errors up front.
        simondotau 4y ago
        I’m sure that’s true some of the time. I wouldn’t say it’s true most of the time.
bruce511 4y ago
This process reoccurs for a reason. Understanding that helps mitigate the loss, and possibly also helps new companies avoid the problem. Basically it happens when people start needing money for life, and that need becomes more pressing than idealism. Consider the start of your career, maybe you came from school or college, probably you had _very_ low money needs. You may have had subsidised living (living with parents, student loans etc.). You live in a world where money isn't as important, you have no obligations, you are as idealistic as you'll ever be. At this point your world is "open source" - everything should be free, make the world a better place. It's not hard to find like-minded people, join companies with like-minded founders. But life happens. You have expenses. Relationships, kids, obligations. If you have employees you have to make payroll. Some might call it "growth" - some might call it "growing up" - really its just discovering (and losing) some of those subsidies you took for granted. Crucially it happens at different rates for different people. So inevitably there's friction - this isn't the company I joined - and so on. It's hard for employees to understand the pressures that come with being an employer. Pressures that lead to decisions an employer would rather not have to make. Pressure to make payroll. Pressure to somehow make it work. Seeing the car park and realise the number of people dependant on making that work. To an employee every decision looks like maximising profit. And in some companies that is true. In others its about maximising income, income to pay everyone, income to keep the lights on, income to build reserves to weather the storms. Employees have the luxury of quietly looking elsewhere. Once they're set then can simply leave. Employers don't have that luxury. Unions, especially unions belonging to one specific business, not industry wide, are not a bad thing. But a seat at the table means understanding the responsibility of that table - and the need to satisfy the needs of all, not just your own. I've seen unions be a huge asset, I've seen them destroy factories and industries. Yes companies pivot from open source all the time, because yes they need to "capture" value - because at some point costs, and life, catch up and unfortunately "giving it away for free" doesn't really pay the bills.

NelsonMinar 4y ago

Unions and Mapbox is a very sore topic and now the subject of a NLRB lawsuit for firing the union organizers. https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/mapbox-sued-firing-union-organizers https://www.protocol.com/bulletins/mapbox-sued-firing-union-... But the union drive came far too late to help the larger problem. The big change happened in 2017 when Softbank invested $164M into MapBox. In retrospect it was far too much money with too many expectations. And with the ugly side effect of salting the earth for any other map startups. It only got worse in 2021 when MapBox's attempt to go public via a SPAC failed. They're plodding along now but it's hard to see what a good final outcome is going to be.

chx 4y ago
This is not the first time I see Softbank as a net negative. Too much money loosely controlled. Is there an example of Softbank doing good?
Doctor_Fegg 4y ago
> And with the ugly side effect of salting the earth for any other map startups I'm unsure on that. Mapbox built a bunch of good tech (mostly around vector tiles), open-sourced it, and then lost interest in smaller customers in their rush for the petrodollar. This has been genuinely great for bootstrapped map businesses. You can easily list a dozen who are using .mvt tech right now and making a good living out of it. True, it wasn't good for Mapzen. But I can't weep too many tears for something funded with Samsung Accelerator magic money, much though they did hire one of the smartest teams in the business - Softbank vs Samsung is not a battle I can bring myself to care about. I 100% agree with you that Mapbox went too far, too fast. But on balance I think their trajectory has (unintentionally) been good for wider mapping tech.
erlich 4y ago
Why do people always think it’s a good idea to unionize when a company is fighting for survival?
- Tostino 4y ago
  Because the people doing the work want a say in the overall direction of the company?
  - xvedejas 4y ago
    This sounds like a case for different corporate governance, yeah?
- Apocryphon 4y ago
  Maybe because the leadership is actively undermining the survival? From this case alone, it seems possible that the Mapbox leadership is chasing a hopeless strategy by focusing on the auto industry, which is dominated by other much larger companies.
  - erlich 4y ago
    And a committee of employees has a better strategy for profitability? I don’t see it. The employees have dramatically less incentive than the owners and management to earn the owners an adequate return on their investment.
    - Apocryphon 4y ago
      Perhaps the employees who are actually executing a faulty business strategy can see its first errors up front.
      - simondotau 4y ago
        I’m sure that’s true some of the time. I wouldn’t say it’s true most of the time.

bruce511 4y ago

This process reoccurs for a reason. Understanding that helps mitigate the loss, and possibly also helps new companies avoid the problem. Basically it happens when people start needing money for life, and that need becomes more pressing than idealism. Consider the start of your career, maybe you came from school or college, probably you had _very_ low money needs. You may have had subsidised living (living with parents, student loans etc.). You live in a world where money isn't as important, you have no obligations, you are as idealistic as you'll ever be. At this point your world is "open source" - everything should be free, make the world a better place. It's not hard to find like-minded people, join companies with like-minded founders. But life happens. You have expenses. Relationships, kids, obligations. If you have employees you have to make payroll. Some might call it "growth" - some might call it "growing up" - really its just discovering (and losing) some of those subsidies you took for granted. Crucially it happens at different rates for different people. So inevitably there's friction - this isn't the company I joined - and so on. It's hard for employees to understand the pressures that come with being an employer. Pressures that lead to decisions an employer would rather not have to make. Pressure to make payroll. Pressure to somehow make it work. Seeing the car park and realise the number of people dependant on making that work. To an employee every decision looks like maximising profit. And in some companies that is true. In others its about maximising income, income to pay everyone, income to keep the lights on, income to build reserves to weather the storms. Employees have the luxury of quietly looking elsewhere. Once they're set then can simply leave. Employers don't have that luxury. Unions, especially unions belonging to one specific business, not industry wide, are not a bad thing. But a seat at the table means understanding the responsibility of that table - and the need to satisfy the needs of all, not just your own. I've seen unions be a huge asset, I've seen them destroy factories and industries. Yes companies pivot from open source all the time, because yes they need to "capture" value - because at some point costs, and life, catch up and unfortunately "giving it away for free" doesn't really pay the bills.