5 ms·

I think it's safe to assume that if your company is acquired, it will be "ruined". Even in the best case, where the product/service stays alive and some of the

I think it's safe to assume that if your company is acquired, it will be "ruined". Even in the best case, where the product/service stays alive and some of the original team is still working on it, it's going to be somebody else calling the shots and taking it in all sorts of unexpected directions.

modeless 4y ago
Yeah even ones that are "successful" like Whatsapp still have the founders unhappy with the direction. Acquisition is almost never a way to achieve any goal other than getting paid.
- charlesdm 4y ago
  Which is fine. It's fine to get paid. That's the deal -- you are getting a bag of cash (more than you could ever make as an employee) for an asset. You lose all say over it once you have gotten your bag of cash.
judge2020 4y ago
Maybe GitHub is different enough? I know FAANG acquisitions are mostly different (but not always[0]), but it seems GitHub started a new focus on features around the time Microsoft was in talks for an acquisition[1]. Even if this you attribute this feature focus to the increased downtime, the features probably outweigh the downtime in terms of value provided to their cloud/enterprise customers. Also, they've kept their own job board (not careers.microsoft.com). 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22739839 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22739839 1: https://github.blog/changelog/page/59/ https://github.blog/changelog/page/59/
- pm90 4y ago
  I think it would be a giant embarrassment if MS were to fuck up Github. GH is too big to fail (also, LinkedIn, Blizzard (soon)) etc.
  - bradleyjg 4y ago
    It’s embarrassing that they can’t figure out code search.
    - judge2020 4y ago
      https://cs.github.com/about https://cs.github.com/about
      - posguy 4y ago
        Does it work as good as grep though? I have to resort to grep all too often to search for a snippet of code in a project on Github.
        coryrc 4y ago
        It can't be, because it'd be trivial to DoS if so.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
  - adrianmsmith 4y ago
    One might have thought the Windows Phone product, and the acquisition of Nokia, was too big to fail, but that didn't stop them from doing so.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]

modeless 4y ago

Yeah even ones that are "successful" like Whatsapp still have the founders unhappy with the direction. Acquisition is almost never a way to achieve any goal other than getting paid.

charlesdm 4y ago
Which is fine. It's fine to get paid. That's the deal -- you are getting a bag of cash (more than you could ever make as an employee) for an asset. You lose all say over it once you have gotten your bag of cash.

judge2020 4y ago

Maybe GitHub is different enough? I know FAANG acquisitions are mostly different (but not always[0]), but it seems GitHub started a new focus on features around the time Microsoft was in talks for an acquisition[1]. Even if this you attribute this feature focus to the increased downtime, the features probably outweigh the downtime in terms of value provided to their cloud/enterprise customers. Also, they've kept their own job board (not careers.microsoft.com). 0: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22739839 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22739839 1: https://github.blog/changelog/page/59/ https://github.blog/changelog/page/59/

pm90 4y ago
I think it would be a giant embarrassment if MS were to fuck up Github. GH is too big to fail (also, LinkedIn, Blizzard (soon)) etc.
- bradleyjg 4y ago
  It’s embarrassing that they can’t figure out code search.
  - judge2020 4y ago
    https://cs.github.com/about https://cs.github.com/about
    - posguy 4y ago
      Does it work as good as grep though? I have to resort to grep all too often to search for a snippet of code in a project on Github.
      - coryrc 4y ago
        It can't be, because it'd be trivial to DoS if so.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
- adrianmsmith 4y ago
  One might have thought the Windows Phone product, and the acquisition of Nokia, was too big to fail, but that didn't stop them from doing so.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]