4 ms·

"Thousands of engineers use Airplane to rapidly build UIs and workload automation for engineering, support, and operations teams." "As part of this transition,

by veeti 3y ago

"Thousands of engineers use Airplane to rapidly build UIs and workload automation for engineering, support, and operations teams." "As part of this transition, we will unfortunately be sunsetting the Airplane platform on March 1." So these "thousands of engineers" will only have two months to redo all of their work?

throwitaway222 3y ago
But does it matter - he said he's excited!
- Rapzid 3y ago
  Excited the Airplane is not falling off the end of the runway..
  - sundaeofshock 3y ago
    More likely he is excited to cash out.
- horsebridge 3y ago
  Well, it has been an Incredible Journey. https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/
hipadev23 3y ago
Don't integrate early-stage SaaS as critical to your business is the main lesson here. You get laid-off just like their employees when they rush toward a shitty acquisition.
- macspoofing 3y ago
  >Don't integrate early-stage SaaS as critical to your business is the main lesson here. Let's be honest, nobody had 'Airplane' as some critical part of their business.
  - vbhakta 3y ago
    We use it for customer support
  - sokoloff 3y ago
    You might be surprised how many shadow IT projects end up becoming load-bearing members in businesses. (I think this is mostly a good thing, because it works out a lot more often than it fails, but when it fails like this, it can be very disruptive.)
- swyx 3y ago
  if everyone was as blanket-critical of early stage SaaS as you we would get a lot less innovation (or at least challengers to keep incumbents honest). someone needs to be discerning of team/product quality, someone needs to take risks to solve pain for their stakeholders. there are good startups that are good partners, there are startups that give a good try and dont make it, and there are plain bad startups. don't throw everyone under the bus
  - Johnny555 3y ago
    My company had a significant product based on an early stage startup's product -- before we signed a license with them, we negotiated a code escrow agreement with the company. And it was good that we did because about a year later they got acquired by a company that didn't want to continue selling the product we used, but we got the source code so were able to maintain the product. We picked up a couple of the developers that were working on that product too.
    - Redoubts 3y ago
      > we negotiated a code escrow agreement with the company. really curious of the terms of that
      - Johnny555 3y ago
        Me too, only a few people in the company knew the terms of the agreement, apparently it was the only code escrow agreement that company made and it was protected under NDA. I don't think we paid a premium for it, but signed a longer term licensing agreement.
    - swyx 3y ago
      woudl love to learn more - what startup was this? why could they not have gone out to market to compete with you instead of letting you whitelabel their product?
      - Johnny555 3y ago
- senderista 3y ago
  I don't understand how any tech startup gets any adoption from business users with critical use cases. The risk seems obviously disqualifying.
  - acjohnson55 3y ago
    One typical strategy is by having all core functionality open source, so that people can self-host, if necessary.
toomuchtodo 3y ago
Potentially an acquihire due to exhausting runway? Would align with the idea of a startup funding crunch in the current macro, but only someone with transaction details and willing to violate an NDA (if one exists) would be able to share (if details aren’t going to be made public). Depending on comp, benefits, and infra, it is not outside of the realm of possibility to burn through $32M (Sep 2022 Series B raise) in ~15 months (~$2.1M/month). Sucks for customers but is hopefully a soft landing for Airplane team ending up in an org that hard pivoted to B2B recently (and hence can afford to continue their employment). https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/airplane https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/airplane
- amatecha 3y ago
  I wonder if there's a business/service that estimates "remaining funding" based on raised funds vs. number of employees and their respective role's average salary? You could almost see it coming when a company is still in the early stages, probably not generating revenue, and burning up cash. The fact I even think about this means someone in the area of business finance thought of it a looong time ago... haha
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Could probably build this with paid access to Crunchbase data set and LinkedIn headcount. Their roles, when advertised, should have (broadly defined) cash comp depending on state pay transparency laws. Cool idea. Seriously though, if you're a business like https://simpleclosure.com/ https://simpleclosure.com/ you'd probably use this for prospecting. Recruiters too might pay for such a list to recruit from companies in peril ("motivated talent"). Lots of ways to potentially squeeze some fiat from this idea imho.
    - jakemoshenko 3y ago
      You're missing the revenue component if you do that.
- swyx 3y ago
  usual caveat that fundraise announcements can happen anywhere from 1-18 months after the actual round was raised so dont read too much into the timing but also linkedin says that had up to 50 employees. highly doubt they were each making like 500k/yr cash on average
greatgib 3y ago
Probably a right punition for people thinking that they can be lazy and build their business critical apps on a random startup proprietary and closed source SaaS. Not to forget again that the cloud is just someone else's computer...
- unethical_ban 3y ago
  The bank is just someone else's money, the grocery store is just someone else's food, the OS is just someone else's code. I used to use that cloud quip, until I researched what IaaS is and accepted there can be benefits. And note, that quip is usually used for IaaS, not SaaS. That all said... This seems like a really shitty rugpull by the company.
  - JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 3y ago
    Not good examples IMHO. The bank is legally your money. The OS can be freely reinstalled without hassles. As for stores, they all have the same way of purchasing stuff, and if they all shut down, society would collapse and you have bigger problems.

by veeti 3y ago

throwitaway222 3y ago

But does it matter - he said he's excited!

Rapzid 3y ago
Excited the Airplane is not falling off the end of the runway..
- sundaeofshock 3y ago
  More likely he is excited to cash out.
horsebridge 3y ago
Well, it has been an Incredible Journey. https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/ https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/

hipadev23 3y ago

Don't integrate early-stage SaaS as critical to your business is the main lesson here. You get laid-off just like their employees when they rush toward a shitty acquisition.

macspoofing 3y ago
>Don't integrate early-stage SaaS as critical to your business is the main lesson here. Let's be honest, nobody had 'Airplane' as some critical part of their business.
- vbhakta 3y ago
  We use it for customer support
- sokoloff 3y ago
  You might be surprised how many shadow IT projects end up becoming load-bearing members in businesses. (I think this is mostly a good thing, because it works out a lot more often than it fails, but when it fails like this, it can be very disruptive.)
swyx 3y ago
if everyone was as blanket-critical of early stage SaaS as you we would get a lot less innovation (or at least challengers to keep incumbents honest). someone needs to be discerning of team/product quality, someone needs to take risks to solve pain for their stakeholders. there are good startups that are good partners, there are startups that give a good try and dont make it, and there are plain bad startups. don't throw everyone under the bus
- Johnny555 3y ago
  My company had a significant product based on an early stage startup's product -- before we signed a license with them, we negotiated a code escrow agreement with the company. And it was good that we did because about a year later they got acquired by a company that didn't want to continue selling the product we used, but we got the source code so were able to maintain the product. We picked up a couple of the developers that were working on that product too.
  - Redoubts 3y ago
    > we negotiated a code escrow agreement with the company. really curious of the terms of that
    - Johnny555 3y ago
      Me too, only a few people in the company knew the terms of the agreement, apparently it was the only code escrow agreement that company made and it was protected under NDA. I don't think we paid a premium for it, but signed a longer term licensing agreement.
  - swyx 3y ago
    woudl love to learn more - what startup was this? why could they not have gone out to market to compete with you instead of letting you whitelabel their product?
    - Johnny555 3y ago
senderista 3y ago
I don't understand how any tech startup gets any adoption from business users with critical use cases. The risk seems obviously disqualifying.
- acjohnson55 3y ago
  One typical strategy is by having all core functionality open source, so that people can self-host, if necessary.

toomuchtodo 3y ago

Potentially an acquihire due to exhausting runway? Would align with the idea of a startup funding crunch in the current macro, but only someone with transaction details and willing to violate an NDA (if one exists) would be able to share (if details aren’t going to be made public). Depending on comp, benefits, and infra, it is not outside of the realm of possibility to burn through $32M (Sep 2022 Series B raise) in ~15 months (~$2.1M/month). Sucks for customers but is hopefully a soft landing for Airplane team ending up in an org that hard pivoted to B2B recently (and hence can afford to continue their employment). https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/airplane https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/airplane

amatecha 3y ago
I wonder if there's a business/service that estimates "remaining funding" based on raised funds vs. number of employees and their respective role's average salary? You could almost see it coming when a company is still in the early stages, probably not generating revenue, and burning up cash. The fact I even think about this means someone in the area of business finance thought of it a looong time ago... haha
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Could probably build this with paid access to Crunchbase data set and LinkedIn headcount. Their roles, when advertised, should have (broadly defined) cash comp depending on state pay transparency laws. Cool idea. Seriously though, if you're a business like https://simpleclosure.com/ https://simpleclosure.com/ you'd probably use this for prospecting. Recruiters too might pay for such a list to recruit from companies in peril ("motivated talent"). Lots of ways to potentially squeeze some fiat from this idea imho.
  - jakemoshenko 3y ago
    You're missing the revenue component if you do that.
swyx 3y ago
usual caveat that fundraise announcements can happen anywhere from 1-18 months after the actual round was raised so dont read too much into the timing but also linkedin says that had up to 50 employees. highly doubt they were each making like 500k/yr cash on average

greatgib 3y ago

Probably a right punition for people thinking that they can be lazy and build their business critical apps on a random startup proprietary and closed source SaaS. Not to forget again that the cloud is just someone else's computer...

unethical_ban 3y ago
The bank is just someone else's money, the grocery store is just someone else's food, the OS is just someone else's code. I used to use that cloud quip, until I researched what IaaS is and accepted there can be benefits. And note, that quip is usually used for IaaS, not SaaS. That all said... This seems like a really shitty rugpull by the company.
- JTyQZSnP3cQGa8B 3y ago
  Not good examples IMHO. The bank is legally your money. The OS can be freely reinstalled without hassles. As for stores, they all have the same way of purchasing stuff, and if they all shut down, society would collapse and you have bigger problems.