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> but then [Keybase] took VC money and imploded My understanding is that they were acqui-hired by Zoom - probably for optics reasons, since Zoom was having a s

> but then [Keybase] took VC money and imploded My understanding is that they were acqui-hired by Zoom - probably for optics reasons, since Zoom was having a series of high-profile security incidents around then. Keybase development basically came to a standstill at that point, probably because the team got pulled away to work on Zoom projects.

yencabulator 1y ago
That can still be caused by VC funding. Take VC money, burn money fast, runway gets too short -> look for an acquisition, even if it throws away the product. Investors can even force the founders to take that deal whether they want it or not. A less aggressively funded business might have limped on essentially forever with the base product.
- RainyDayTmrw 1y ago
  I've heard this a few times. By what mechanism do the investors do the forcing, assuming that the company is early enough that the founder aligned board is still in the majority?
  - yencabulator 1y ago
    It's all a question of are the founders still in power or not. Especially at a time when the company is actively looking for a cheap last-resort acquisition, I'd expect all the possible external funding to have been pumped in, at less-than-ideal terms, and diluted the founders' slice. I've personally worked at a startup that forcibly ejected its founders. It happens. (The startup got sold for scraps about 6 months later. The service I personally worked on kept streaming video for about a year with zero maintenance, only failing when the hardware was physically powered off. This was well after the main database had collapsed, and the web UI was inoperable, while iframe embeds kept chugging along.)
    - Thrymr 1y ago
      > It's all a question of are the founders still in power or not. Plenty of "founders" decide to sell out rather than follow their original vision no matter what. It's not even necessarily the wrong thing to do. But the prospect of a liquidity event can turn an idealist's head quickly.

yencabulator 1y ago

That can still be caused by VC funding. Take VC money, burn money fast, runway gets too short -> look for an acquisition, even if it throws away the product. Investors can even force the founders to take that deal whether they want it or not. A less aggressively funded business might have limped on essentially forever with the base product.

RainyDayTmrw 1y ago
I've heard this a few times. By what mechanism do the investors do the forcing, assuming that the company is early enough that the founder aligned board is still in the majority?
- yencabulator 1y ago
  It's all a question of are the founders still in power or not. Especially at a time when the company is actively looking for a cheap last-resort acquisition, I'd expect all the possible external funding to have been pumped in, at less-than-ideal terms, and diluted the founders' slice. I've personally worked at a startup that forcibly ejected its founders. It happens. (The startup got sold for scraps about 6 months later. The service I personally worked on kept streaming video for about a year with zero maintenance, only failing when the hardware was physically powered off. This was well after the main database had collapsed, and the web UI was inoperable, while iframe embeds kept chugging along.)
  - Thrymr 1y ago
    > It's all a question of are the founders still in power or not. Plenty of "founders" decide to sell out rather than follow their original vision no matter what. It's not even necessarily the wrong thing to do. But the prospect of a liquidity event can turn an idealist's head quickly.