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Facebook almost acquired Waze, but we ended up with Google
- joanne123 3y ago[dead]
- alejandra2 3y ago[flagged]
- alejandra265 3y ago[flagged]
- mtmail 3y ago"By the time we began the acquisition process, we had already met the CEOs of Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, and members of the senior teams at Amazon, Apple, and others." That's already a milestone few small companies can accomplish.
- gniv 3y agoInteresting details on the negotiations, especially the lack of chemistry with the Facebook teams.
- gniv 3y agoAlso just realized Noam is a founder of this site. Nice way to create buzz.
- MicropenisMike 3y agoLink is broken?
- wodenokoto 3y agobroken for me too. Any mirrors?
- mtmail 3y agohttp://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:C5LXloSJv6EJ:https://post.news/@/noam/2RTRvTNNxSCQb3yNjqa0DPfr1Yk&hl=en&gl=de&strip=1&vwsrc=0 http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:C5LXloS...
- jasonlotito 3y agoRefresh the page. Seems like this Post is having difficulty displaying text for some reason.
- xp84 3y agoOh, 2023 Internet… it’s so difficult to just “display a page of static hypertext” when you’ve got so many microservices to write, then to rewrite in Rust, so many react components to create, so many lambdas to execute serverless in the cloud, and of course so many adtech components to integrate on top of it all.
- hungrigekatze 3y agohttps://imgur.com/gallery/izcx4Se https://imgur.com/gallery/izcx4Se
- myth_drannon 3y ago"...and the engineers doing the due diligence were very young and were confidently belittling what we had built. Our average engineer was 40 years old,..." - That's so Meta. I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to ask them leetcode hard questions during due diligence.
- asylteltine 3y ago[dead]
- gumballindie 3y agoThat explains why Waze works so much better than facebook or google products. Because people were hired based on actual competence not high school level "leetcode" questions that serve no purpose.
- willvarfar 3y agoDo we know those 40yos didn't go through a programming puzzle hiring gauntlet? (My own experience is that those I've worked with who are the best veterans also enjoy algorithms etc too. As do I. Shrug?)
- Consultant32452 3y agoIn the last several years I've done work for some three letter agencies and fortune 500s. None of them required a technical interview really, only about half required a social fit interview. I'm starting to think my experience is really unusual. Edit: I just remembered I did a piece of work for a power company. The technical lead talked to me before hand and told me the one technical question he was going to ask me during the otherwise social fit interview.
- duxup 3y agoI think there is a lot of the tech world that isn’t quite the stereotype / big tech type world we think of… it just doesn’t get much attention.
- teeray 3y agoI love Waze, but the product has stagnated. I’d love simple things like the ability for it to get me where I want N minutes early instead of exactly on time (I hate hacking this in with synthetic calendar events). It’d also be nice to be able to file mobile orders with Dunkin’ / Starbucks / etc. on my route and have them executed when I’m within range of them, so my order is hot when I arrive. But yeah, let’s have more zany celebrity voices.
- Workaccount2 3y agoA google product stagnating? No way!
- aceazzameen 3y agoI'm actually happy it's stagnant. It works well and I don't want it ruined because someone is under pressure to ship a new feature.
- whylo 3y agoBut in Google-land, doesn't that mean it's next on the chopping block?
- jerrygenser 3y agoGoogle puts things on the chopping block due to small userbase or not enough user growth. A very large user base product but which has stagnated should be fine as long as users don't start leavign
- agloe_dreams 3y agoWaze was bought to keep it away from Google Maps. Google actually doesn't want it to succeed.
- aceazzameen 3y agoYes and no. Waze provides data points to Google Maps that it wouldn't otherwise have. Like crashes, objects on road, cars pulled over, police speed traps, etc. Waze users provide that data, and Google Maps gets to display it for free. The day when that data input capability is merged into Google Maps completely is when Waze will be shut down and the user experience will slowly be enshitified.
- megax 3y agoWorking URL : https://post.news/@/noam/2RTRvTNNxSCQb3yNjqa0DPfr1Yk https://post.news/@/noam/2RTRvTNNxSCQb3yNjqa0DPfr1Yk
- zirgs 3y agoEhh, I would have preferred someone else. Google already has too many products that they force you to use with the same account.
- isoos 3y agoTo be fair, waze is perfectly usable without using any account.
- nicce 3y agoI stopped using it because it was not usable because of the ads.
- firesteelrain 3y agoI just used it twice for a 12 hour trip couple weeks ago and had no ads.
- mft_ 3y agoI use it periodically (in Europe) and haven't seen an advert yet?
- nicce 3y agoIt depends on where you are driving. If nobody buys ads in your area, then you are probably not seeing ads. For me the most distraction were the branded pins on the map. Literally ads which hide other places and are distracting.
- dizhn 3y agoDoes it keep a local search history without logging in? Google Maps doesn't. I guess it takes too much storage. :) By the way, most of the western world are missing out on the best navigation app which is Yandex. Unfortunately it's only available in a few countries.
- stjohnswarts 3y ago
- mliker 3y agoGreat inside look into the psychology behind a big acquisition like this. I can't help but feel Noam's ego was bruised by the poor due diligence experience he experienced at Facebook, causing him to lash out at the company within the post. Otherwise, really insightful details, especially that Instagram was acquired for $1B, which is what he was anchored on.
- benzible 3y agoA straightforward recounting of a negative experience doesn't constitute "lashing out" and I don't see any hyperbolic language or other signs that he's exaggerating. Also - Facebook's offer allowed him to get Google from their original $450M offer to the $1.15B he ultimately accepted. I doubt he's upset over this.
- freedomben 3y agoSadly, in contemporary corporate culture, the truth is considered rude if it's at all negative. You're supposed to imply it, and if that fails you can speak it but it must be sugar-coated heavily to avoid people taking personal offense at it. And to be clear I'm not talking about rudely blunt truth (which can indeed be pretty rude), I'm simply talking about inconvenient facts that people don't want to hear and try not to acknowledge. Things like "the Facebook engineers belittled our product" should instead become "there were personal chemistry challenges between us and the Facebook engineers." Instead of "the Facebook engineers were young" it should be "we had a culture mismatch" or something like that.
- alwyn 3y agoIsn't that mostly corporate US and Asia? I love this type of directness; no sugarcoating inconvenient facts. If someone's ego gets damage because of that, that sounds more like a them problem, in my eyes. Then again I am Dutch so we live and breathe directness...
- DragonStrength 3y ago
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- benzible 3y agoIt's also worth reading how he ultimately felt about the acquisition. His original post seems to be gone but this is a good summary... https://www.timesofisrael.com/waze-ceo-noam-bardin-explains-why-he-left-google-2weeks-ago/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/waze-ceo-noam-bardin-explains-...
- wslh 3y agoImternet Archive to the rescue! for the original post: https://web.archive.org/web/20210219020655/https://paygo.media/p/25171 https://web.archive.org/web/20210219020655/https://paygo.med...
- bluSCALE4 3y agoDid anyone use the car sharing feature that have/had? I always wanted to use it but never did.
- umeshunni 3y agoNo, I think it launched right before the pandemic and that likely killed any momentum it could have gained.
- moneywoes 3y agoDid they build anything after? Great read
- SilverBirch 3y agoBy they do you mean Noam? Because this website - Post.news is literally the startup he's working on.
- remote_phone 3y agoWaze has done nothing in the last 8 years. Things like the auto zoom is horrible and especially on car play I have to manually keep zooming In and Out. It was great 10 years so but now it’s below average. Meanwhile Apple navigation is now the best. It shows the traffic lights and the navigation is much easier. The only thing it doesn’t have is better traffic notification. The anti zooming in and out of apple navigation is so much better than Waze especially when I’m in areas that I’m unfamiliar with. I remember when I was laughing at Apple Maps when it first came out but now I use it all the time. It goes to show you the difference between apple and google and how products go to die at google.
- user3939382 3y agoI want to be able to easily add/remove waypoints to customize my route. Google Maps desktop does this through drag and drop which is awesome but the route can't be transferred to mobile. Apple Maps has this on desktop and transfers to mobile but the UI for it is clunky and the number of points is severely limited. Waze you can add stops but again it's not really designed for customizing a route and it's not friendly, especially not on mobile.
- bsimpson 3y agoMy workaround on mobile is to add a stop that is along the route I wanna take. It mostly works, but you have to remember not to e.g. turn off on the little sidestreet to get to the random waypoint you picked. This is even more of a concern when you use it to give directions to somebody else.
- snapcaster 3y agoI've been really impressed with out much Apple Maps has improved. I remember when it first launched I had Waze and Google maps on my phone since I would need to fall back to them often. Haven't had to do that in a long time now
- nicce 3y agoIt depends where you are using it. Apple Maps is still missing public transport locations or information about shops in many areas.
- ladberg 3y agoYep, I pretty much exclusively use Apple Maps in the US and it's great but when I'm on vacation it's often unusable. Most recently, I was in Georgia (country) and navigation of any kind is nonexistent. Like often times I would look something up and want walking directions there but it simply isn't available. Google Maps worked great.
- actionablefiber 3y agoI also find generally that both Apple Maps and Google Maps are extremely unsatisfying to use if you typically travel by bicycle. Google Maps looks like it supports combining public transit and bicycle, since you can select bike as a connecting mode to/from public transit, but then it never proposes bike routes. Apple Maps doesn't pretend to be able to do this. It is annoying, because mixing and matching bike/bus/train is a very common way of getting around in the DC area.
- caligarn 3y agoIf Waze had taken the FB deal tho, it would have been a stock deal, and it would have been worth 2-3x more than the Google cash deal.
- EngCanMan 3y agoA bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. They could have easily invested their cash in whatever they chose, whereas a stock deal can be limiting.
- ericd 3y agoOr it could’ve ended up at 1/3 by the end of the lockup. With cash, they’re free to put it into FB stock, if they want, though statistically (especially from a variance/gut wrenching swings perspective), an S&P500 fund is a much better option. Generally, I’d happily take a significant discount on the amount to make it a no/low strings cash deal, unless the stock offer is basically equivalent to a cash deal (super liquid, no restrictions on sale).
- Sai_ 3y agoFB ca 2012-13 was a pretty sure bet, imho. They basically had no competition in social. TikTok hadn't come out yet. G+ had perished not long ago. Apple hadn't yet kneecapped them on privacy. They hadn't yet turned into supervillains. If all I cared about was money and the potential upside, I'd have taken FB any day over all the no/low strings cash Google could throw at me. Noam talks about the civic breakdown caused by FB and how he is happy he chose Google but that could be a case of post facto justification. Google, sans its "Don't be evil" is no saint either. I'm sure if he had gone with FB, he'd find five different things to ding Google on - e.g. firing the AI ethics team, sunsetting products without notice, dropping "don't be evil" from their charter, having no North Star other than maximizing ad rev.
- mucle6 3y agoCurious, how much did you make from buying shares in Facebook in 2012/2013?
- oh_sigh 3y agoWow, I can't believe it has been 10 years, and all the Waze data is still not integrated into google maps.
- xnx 3y agoWaze would've been a much better fit with Facebook because of its social angle.
- HWR_14 3y agoCan someone expound on the strategy around the unsolicited offer part of the story. He was unable to engage with the offer legally. He told FB about it to, presumably, let them know about the new BATNA if they tried to get concessions during due diligence. But doesn't that also send the signal he is looking for them to match the offer after he had signed for a price (that he had offered as the won't shop it around price). That seems to have led to them accusing him of leaking the story to solicit the offer during a the period he was supposed to not shop it, which led to the deal blowing up. I'm also a little unsure about the ethical and legal limitations he was under.
- senko 3y agoThe term sheet potentially had a clause that (a) prevented him from soliciting other offers, and crucially (b) disclose any unsolicited offers immediately. (I don't have a ton of experience with m&a, but we had something similar in my previous exit and it did seemed like a standard clause in such contracts). So yeah, the leak may be intentional to in effect solicit an offer from Google (and would definitely explain ill will from Facebook).
- HWR_14 3y agoHe definitely mentioned (a) in his write up. I wasn't aware of (b), and I thought he made it sound more like a choice. He talked about fiscal obligations requiring him to tell the board. But if he was contractually obligated to disclose the offer to FB that makes it a lot clearer.
- deanCommie 3y agoWe could never prove it but the quote is interesting: "With accountants, lawyers, board members, and investors involved, the news was bound to leak, and it did. Though I did not leak the information, and to this day I still do not know who did, I think Facebook and Google still believe I leaked the news." There are 3 statements in this * "A leak was inevitable" * "I did not leak it" * "I do not know who did" Here is a scenario under which they could all be true: Noam, his exec team, OR some board members, OR some investors (which are likely to be friends or family members for a private company) are out for late night drinks. Someone says the words "Ugh, these Facebook guys are idiots, and we don't seem to get along with them. I wish we could get acquired by Google instead. If somehow they got word of the acquisition, I bet they'd reach out with an unsolicited offer. Sure would be a shame if SOMEONE LEAKED IT." No conspiracy necessary. No orders. Some party at the table hears, agrees, and contacts their old IDF buddy at Haaretz. Done.
- viknesh 3y agoI remember being at the Facebook weekly Q&A session when this was announced and Mark definitely stated it quite differently than the author's perspective. Basically that the Facebook deal was already "done" and just pending final signatures when Google swooped in at the 11th hour and stole the acquisition. I still think it's a shame that there isn't a second major tech company with a serious mapping product. Apple Maps has always seemed laughably inferior even to what Waze offered 10 years ago.
- stuff4ben 3y agoI don't need all of the fancy features that Waze has. Just a simple map that routes me from A to B. Which is why I use Apple Maps more than Google Maps these days.
- freeplay 3y agoYou're missing out on the speed trap alerts, though. That's the primary reason I use Waze over anything else.
- jamesrascal 3y agoApple Maps has this as well and I often get the alerts while driving. What would be amazing is if the major apps opened the social aspects to share this data.
- tanjtanjtanj 3y agoI don't know when it was added but Apple Maps also has speed trap, collision, object on road, and traffic jam alerts.
- brk 3y agoI have not found that to be reliable enough to trust overall. I hate Waze wanting to announce every damn thing, it's annoying after a while. I don't care if there is a car on the side of the road, or the tiniest piece of cardboard in the road that someone felt compelled to flag for points.
- z3t4 3y agoWhat I find interesting is that the end goal for many companies is to be sold to a global monopoly. It is not a fair competition. But I guess it's good for consumers who get free stuff - but the question is - would we get a better product if there was competition!? So in order to compete: 1) Get to know people working for a monopoly 2) Make a better product 3) Profit (or bleed to death)