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IAC sold 17 apps to Bending Spoons. $100M deal, all 330 employees fired
- m-p-3 3y agoBending Spoons seems to be the "Broadcom" of mobile apps, where softwares goes to die a death by a thousand cuts.
- hnfong 3y agoIf they fire everyone from the acquired company in one go, it sounds more like a giant hemorrhage than a thousand small cuts...
- oldpersonintx 3y ago[dead]
- emmet 3y agoWelp, better cancel my Productive subscription.
- pocketarc 3y agoYou’re not wrong. Been using it since ~2015, seems like it’s time to move on. Maybe this is the kick I needed to build something out myself, been thinking about it for years.
- kbar13 3y agoi'm not sure i quite understand the situation. is the implication that bending spoons is some kind of private equity firm but for apps that will suck the soul out of these 17 apps? i haven't heard of this company before but browsing their site at least the marketing speak points towards it not being the case... could someone explain?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- vdddv 3y agoit's exaclty that, and it's based on them doing it to several high profile apps (ex: evernote)
- vineyardmike 3y agoThey’re not private equity… they’re like a bottom tier tech conglomerate that’s been growing rapidly lately. They most famously bought Evernote. They buy apps/products that mature and don’t need a lot of work, fire all the workers and hire a skeleton crew to manage them in a cheaper labor market. They also harvest data from the apps and resell it.
- hiAndrewQuinn 3y agoI've always wanted to build a digital burial business like this, actually. It feels like a great way to tax late adopters' unwillingness to take on the risk of switching to a newer, better platform. As a late adopter myself of a great many things I feel like I understand the crotchety reluctance well enough to make a good go at it - maybe I'll unlearn my own risk aversion along the way.
- ayewo 3y ago> I've always wanted to build a digital burial business like this, actually. I had a chuckle at that unlikely turn of phrase. Digital burial business is so apt that I’m stealing it, thanks
- radicalbyte 3y agoIt's certainly snappier than "do an Oracle".
- ghaff 3y agoIt's not just the risk. Something like Evernote, for example, if someone has been using it religiously for years, there's a real cost associated with migrating to something new (and probably no better unless it's a completely different workflow).
- hiAndrewQuinn 3y agoEven better! Great way to profit massively off of folks trying to have their cake (hedge against risk) and eat it (not keep things locally) too.
- Sayrus 3y agoThey recently acquired Meetup as well [1]. This doesn't bode well for its future. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38953242 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38953242
- Hoefner 3y agoAnd Evernote almost 2 years ago https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33623402 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33623402
- ParetoOptimal 3y agoObsidian, logseq, or even org-roam are evernote replacements?
- AJ007 3y agoJoplin is a good open source option too, feels more like the original Evernote in terms of UI/UX https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/ https://github.com/laurent22/joplin/
- w0m 3y agoevernote falling apart is a sad day :( I loved it before the monetization changees killed it.
- magicalhippo 3y agoSpeaking of, is there a good replacement for Meetup if you just want to organize some informal activities, like a user group or going biking?
- joe_fishfish 3y agoSadly most people (at least in my country) use Facebook for this.
- ghaff 3y ago
- vineyardmike 3y agoObviously sucks to be one of those 330 employees, but I wonder if we really need all these junk apps that just harvest user data. Hopefully they can get work doing something fulfilling. Every time a data harvester moves operations to Europe for cheaper labor, it seems like a game of Russian roulette. When will the day come that the EU drives Bending Spoons out of existence? The US should adopt intent nationalistic laws against international businesses collecting American’s data. Not because of National Security (but that’s what the politicians can say) but simply because Americans are the most valuable markets and it’ll drive many of these companies out of business, and generally disrupt the market.
- oaiey 3y agoBetter said is: Every time a company does radical shift in company structure by shady management, it seems like a game of Russian roulette. Law-wise, your data is more safe in the EU than in most of the US even for an American citizen. An American company/management under bad privacy laws can just sell your data at the highest bidder.
- vineyardmike 3y agoYea the whole industry sucks, but it’s just an easier political move to ban “outsiders” from doing shady things.
- tonyedgecombe 3y agoCompanies like this aren’t on the EU’s radar. It’s the big tech monopolies that get the negative attention and big incumbent businesses that get positive attention. Individual countries in the EU can make things more bureaucratic than they need to be for smaller businesses but that has little to do with the EU.
- kasperni 3y agoIf you read their Wikipedia page [1] they sound like an Italian Saint. A lot about the various awards they have gotten and other "charitable" activities. But reading the comments here, I get another impression of the company. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bending_Spoons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bending_Spoons
- fallingknife 3y agoOne the one hand, never take rankings and awards like that seriously. On the other hand, people in these comments are irrationally angry about the fact that people are getting fired in this deal without knowing any of the business reasons behind it.
- epolanski 3y agoThat's like 100% written by themselves or a PR agency.
- stuartjohnson12 3y agoThe great thing about Wikipedia is that anyone can edit. Don't mind if I do...
- dylan604 3y agoSo that's what they want you to believe, but unless you are part of the accepted editor cabal, any changes you make will be reverted by someone actually part of the cabal
- stuartjohnson12 3y agoDo you think I'm part of the editor cabal? If so, what qualified me? If not, do you expect my changes to this article to be reverted?
- dylan604 3y ago
- DeathArrow 3y agoHow are they going to earn money if they fired the entire team?
- epolanski 3y agoBy freezing most new development and limiting the work to maintenance and user data/money milking.
- Someone 3y agoTeams cost money, so that’s a cost-cutting measure. They’ll replace it with a better team, where ‘better’ is defined from a $$$ perspective. There’s a wide range of options here: - zero person team, and hope to recover cost from buying from existing subscribers and new buyers/subscribers over time before the app dies. - replace them with marketeers, and hope to get enough more new buyers/subscribers before the app dies. - smaller team, making it easier to break-even. - cheaper developers, making it easier to break-even. A new development team might just be a skeleton team to keep the app running across OS upgrades, or it might be a much larger team, or anything in-between.
- BizarroLand 3y agoAlso, they could dump the entire thing onto their existing team and just let them deal with it. If the pressure makes you crack then you just weren't up to snuff, right?
- mrweasel 3y agoIt does seem like a really short term business plan: Buy up a bunch of apps, milk them of all their worth, gambling that it will be more than they paid, before the users all leave. Then take the profit and slaughter a new set of apps. In this case I do wonder how much those apps are actually worth, IAC is apparently happy to take $100M for them, which would indicate that in their current form they aren't going to make $6M each in the short term. Both companies seem rather strange, they don't appear to have any actual coherent business plan.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 3y agoWhy is an adware company allowed to advertise its app with the name of a government organization ("NOAA Weather Radar")? Since they can just sell the app, I assume it's not them writing it for the government on contract.
- samch 3y agoI don’t think it’s allowed without permission per: https://www.usa.gov/government-copyright https://www.usa.gov/government-copyright Specifically, “Endorsement, trademarks, and agency logos You cannot use government materials in a way that implies endorsement by a government agency, official, or employee. For example, using a photo in your advertisement of a government official wearing or using your product is not permitted. You also cannot use federal government trademarks or federal government agency logos without permission. For example, in general, you cannot use an agency logo or trademark on your social media page to suggest endorsement or sponsorship by the agency.” NOAA does have a licensing program, but I somehow doubt that this app was part of that program. Assuming that’s true, then this is likely a case of poor enforcement.
- dmurray 3y agoIs that the law, or is that more the government saying, through its publicists, how it would like its image to be used? Seems crazy that, say, an outdoor clothes retailer couldn't share a photo of a group trek where the park ranger was wearing its gear. Or that SpaceX couldn't publish a photo of NASA astronauts flying in its spacecraft - even with NASA's permission.
- fakedang 3y agoIt is the law. You can use those photos (including competitors photos) for any use other than marketing. Other uses, for a company, don't really exist. It is often explicitly upfront in the media pages of most government agencies. SpaceX can use the photos as such for factual reporting, which usually ends up being marketing for them indirectly. That is allowed. If SpaceX were to market themselves actively as having government ties, that would not be allowed. In a similar vein, I notice most startups using government logos in their marketing. That is also not allowed - even if the agency is using your software. You are not allowed to display those logos, except for "factual marketing" - say, a white paper on the government agency using your software. Even mentioning something on the lines of "DOD improved its purchasing efficiency by 10x (heh!)" is forbidden explicitly. I'm not sure about most of the agencies themselves, but the FDA is very strict about enforcing this rule and has often fined Big Pharma for this infraction many times.
- timenova 3y agoThey did the same recently with Filmic [0], of the Filmic Pro iOS Camera app. I guess this is what the exact opposite of acqui-hire looks like. Acquire only for the app's customers, and their currently ongoing subscriptions, and nothing else. Does anyone know if they maintain these apps well over time, or they just rot? [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38502586 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38502586
- dylan604 3y agoacqui-fire??
- hhh 3y agoI loved NOAA Weather Radar before they shut it down.
- kramerger 3y agoI feel if an app changes ownership, all users should automatically be notified by the app store.
- wouldbecouldbe 3y agoI mean this is not just app related, companies can sell applications with it's user data regardless of the app store.
- aitchnyu 3y agoBrowser extensions too.
- CodesInChaos 3y ago> an app changes ownership Unfortunately defining what that means becomes rather tricky once you consider that the company owning the app can change ownership. That ownership can be shared and go through arbitrarily many indirections, and if it's a publicly traded company, some of its shares change ownership all the time.
- bmitc 3y agoIt's not tricky. Someone owns it.
- jclardy 3y agoOkay, lets take a simple example. Indie app A, owned by a developer, Joe. Company B buys A outright, including employing Joe. They keep the brand around for name recognition. How does the app store know this? None of this has to be public info if A & B aren't public. The company registration hasn't changed. At best, maybe the bank account number changed.
- TuringNYC 3y agoHere is an example of the complexity. I just purchased a single share of Google. Your Google Maps application has thus changed ownership. Boom, I just sold that single share, now the ownership changed again. I realize this sounds tongue in cheek but a PE firm trying to get around ownership disclosure requirements can do something just as easily, both with public and private companies.
- benrapscallion 3y agoBending spoons also acquired EverNote not so long ago.
- elondaits 3y agoCalling your company "Bending Spoons" is like calling it "Stealing Chickens" (Context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_bending https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_bending)
- ronyfadel 3y agoIt's a reference to the Matrix movie
- detourdog 3y agoThey can choose what they thought they were referencing. They don't get the opportunity to tell others what to infer.
- jkubicek 3y agoTrue, but considering the popularity and age of The Matrix, I'm guessing most people assume the hot tech company is referencing techno futurist movie from the 90s and not a charlatan from the 70s.
- grok29 3y agoWhat do you think the matrix was referencing?
- FourierEnvy 3y ago[flagged]
- grok29 3y agoCan you explain how it has something to do with transgenderism?
- detourdog 3y agobeleive it or not I haven' t seen the matrix or related series. There is a possibility I may have seen the original. I have known about psychics claiming to bend spoons seemingly forever
- TheChaplain 3y agoBending Spoons also bough Evernote a while ago. Pretty much doubled the price. With that I thought they could go stuff themselves and went to unsubscribe, but they offered a drastic discount if I didn't. So they managed to keep me for another year. :/ But if they don't get their Python SDK in order soon I might drop them anyway.
- blantonl 3y agoPython SDK LOL ok I'm sure they are going to escalate this to the top. For you, and maybe one other person. :)
- dimgl 3y agoAh crap. I use Robokiller.
- cs702 3y agoInvestors in Bending Spoons include musician The Weekend, tennis player Andre Agassi, movie star Bradley Cooper, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, and director/actor Taika Waititi, among many other famous people: https://bendingspoons.com/people https://bendingspoons.com/people (scroll to the bottom to see all names). I wonder if any of these illustrious backers are aware of the true business model of Bending Spoons, which can only be described as scammy: 1. Buy apps that have loyal users. 2. Fire all or most of the employees. 3. Update the apps with the most possibly intrusive adware, to milk user data for cash, earning a nice return. Most users will thoughtlessly tap "OK" when asked to agree to the barrage of new permissions requested by the updated apps. The company does other things too, but this is its main business.
- mariusmg 3y agoWow, even that /people page screams "douchebags".....
- atlasunshrugged 3y agoYes, also I'm not sure I see hiring decisions made by committee as a plus!
- swozey 3y agoThat's the Google way. I was referred by 2 people on the team I'd be on but nobody on that team had anything to do with my committee interview. So, instead of the people who know my work (from FOSS projects) it was a random gaggle of Stanford, etc people. I don't have a degree at all so to say I was intimidated and miserable and feeling very judged is an understatement. Even my recruiter there had gone to Stanford and mentioned that her sister went to some other school and looks down at her lowly Stanford. wild place.
- mistrial9 3y agoin older days my artsy friends would call those Stanford etc people "yuppies" or "frat guys/gals" among other things. The culture gap is real since those ordinary graduates did in fact compete and acheive in a certain way to get where they are.. so it is easy and human nature to judge others on the criteria they were judged on.. meanwhile, real skills, talent and sweat are common among the fringy outsiders, along with bad skin, odd clothing choices, low personal skills or other warts... hang in there!
- outcoldman 3y agoActually have been using NOAA Weather Radar a lot. Time to uninstall.
- melnichek 3y agoI suggest you try rainbow.ai As a weather radar, it's far more accurate in the US
- outcoldman 3y agoDoes not look like it much different from default weather app on ios.
- pmontra 3y agoThis IAC? https://www.iac.com/ https://www.iac.com/
- bdcravens 3y ago20 employees per app? I'll never minimize the amount of work it takes to create software, but even so, that seems like a lot. Moreso when you consider how many employees' skills could be applied to multiple apps.
- fckgw 3y agoIs 20 people per company a lot? It's not just a person and some software. Robokiller for example is a paid service with a business division. You're talking developers, sales teams, support, and everything else that goes with it.
- csours 3y agoComparing a working app to a product running in the market is like comparing a peacefully sleeping baby to a person actively competing in a triathlon.
- curiouscats 3y agoIs there an app that monitors your apps to see if any have been sold to such unethical companies to alert you to delete your accounts with those apps? That would seem like a useful app. Frankly Apple and Alphabet should offer such a service but I don't have much confidence that they will.
- test1235 3y agocan apps see what other apps are installed?
- smachiz 3y agoAt least on iOS, only with MDM profiles for managed devices tagged as company owned I believe.
- mhh__ 3y agoThis is actually really important for things like browser extensions.
- krembo 3y agoJust use Little Rat to block unwanted call-homes, telemetry and stuff like that https://github.com/dnakov/little-rat https://github.com/dnakov/little-rat
- euphetar 3y agoAuqui-fire?
- amadeuspagel 3y agoBending Spoons is a european company, and one of their major advantages is that salaries in europe are lower, obviously they need to fire the american employees of any company they buy to play that out.
- zelphirkalt 3y agoWait, isn't bending spoons the same company that recently acquired Meetup? Lets see how this plays out for Meetup employees.