6 ms·

Pulse Joins the LinkedIn Family

92 points by pumpikano 13y ago

gingerbreadman 13y ago
Great stuff from the pulse guys!
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
socalnate1 13y ago
I love Pulse, it's my favorite mobile news reader by far.
thecosas 13y ago
Congrats to the pulse team. Also, dammit.
dm8 13y ago
Apparently, LinkedIn paid them 90M - http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/11/linkedin-acquires-pulse-for-90m-in-stock-and-cash/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/11/linkedin-acquires-pulse-for... Wow. There are so many RSS readers but congrats to Pulse team on executing well. How it fits into LinkedIn's product roadmap?
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
flipside 13y ago
I'm optimistic because I love Pulse and Linkedin has definitely been pushing into the news feed space so it makes a lot of sense. Slightly concerned though because of what happened to CardMunch. Either way, grats to the pulse team!
julien_c 13y ago
Way to go Akshay Kothari!
checken 13y ago
I hope they do a better job with Pulse than they have with Rapportive
SurfScore 13y ago
I love Pulse. They built a great app and I'm really happy for them, so this isn't a critique, but were they really worth 90M? I get that most of it was in stock, but damn. I guess it was more of a team/userbase acquisition, similar to the Dropbox/Mailbox deal. Either way, congrats guys!
- akavi 13y ago
  Isn't stock == cash when the acquiring company is public?
  - nuclear_eclipse 13y ago
    Assuming a vesting period, that implies much less liquidity from the deal, and very much relies on the longterm value of the stock. IMO, stock later is worth much less than cash now.
    - SurfScore 13y ago
      Exactly. And stock is typically much cheaper for a company to spend than actual cash. A perfect example of this was the Facebook-Instagram acquisition. It was right before Facebook had their IPO, so it was much cheaper for them. Ironically, since Facebook's share price dropped so quickly after IPO, that billion dollar valuation ended up being closer to $715M source -- http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/24/3551872/facebook-instagram-acquisition-715-million http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/24/3551872/facebook-instagra...
    - hkmurakami 13y ago
      For a company like Linkedin which has been on the market for a while, you can buy a bunch of put options. It comes with a cost obviously, but it's a good hedge for an all stock transaction. IIRC this is what Mark Cuban did when he sold his company to Yahoo!
  - ChuckMcM 13y ago
    No. Typically that stock comes with a constraint. When the company I helped start was acquired in 1999 there was an 18 month 'hold' on selling stock resulting from the transaction. The math did not work out in my favor :-)
bambax 13y ago
I don't understand LinkedIn (anymore). Their business model seems to be to source candidates to recruiters. This may be good for recruiters, but for candidates? I'm not so sure. It's certainly better to have an overall strong online presence (Twitter / Github (if relevant) / personal blog) than contacts on LinkedIn that don't mean anything. Groups are full of spam. The website is incredibly unresponsive. They bought the excellent IndexTank technology and team a while ago, and promptly shut it down (the tech was open sourced though, which is more than can be said for a lot of acquisitions). It seems they only keep on living because people are somewhat afraid to delete their profile; but everything inside LinkedIn feels dead. And now Pulse. Who would go to LinkedIn for news?? Pulse says "The company shares (...) our belief in the power of knowledge and elevated discussion". Elevated discussion? On LinkedIn? Come on!
- aashaykumar92 13y ago
  Yeah that quote drives me crazy. LinkedIn already has those news stories at the top of our home pages--I have shared a couple but I have never seen anyone engage in mine nor others' posts. Unless LinkedIn plans to create a forum for news while utilizing Pulse, I don't get that statement from Pulse. But again, they'd be losing to already-popular forums. More than anything, I just hope LinkedIn doesn't shut Pulse down. It would be a huge loss to many of Pulse's loyal users.
  - muratmutlu 13y ago
    The top posts seem to have a lot of comments (600+) and likes http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/whoToFollow?strategy=post7&trk=who_to_follow-N http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/whoToFollow?strategy=post... I've been using groups a lot recently and if you post the right stuff it sparks a good discussion. Also sends a fair bit of traffic to my blog. Agree that the site is unresponsive, badly designed and considering their valuation it seems baffling the state it is in.
  - muratmutlu 13y ago
    The top posts seem to have a lot of comments (600+) and likes http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/whoToFollow?strategy=post7&trk=who_to_follow-N http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/whoToFollow?strategy=post... I've been using groups a lot recently and if you post the right stuff it sparks a good discussion. Also sends a fair bit of traffic to my blog. Agree that the site is unresponsive, badly designed and considering their valuation it seems baffling the state it is in.
GuiA 13y ago
Congrats to the pulse founders for entering the millionaire club. Sucks that they have to pretend to be excited about joining LinkedIn and likely suffer there for a few years, but every rose has a thorn.
- richiezc 13y ago
  My friends startup was acquired by LinkedIn, 2 year vesting period that is heavily backloaded.
  - fourstar 13y ago
    Please elaborate. Backloaded? In terms of what?
    - fananta 13y ago
      In terms of cash. So they might get 10% up front and larger portions as they near the end of the vesting period.
zachgalant 13y ago
congrats, guys!

92 points by pumpikano 13y ago

gingerbreadman 13y ago

Great stuff from the pulse guys!

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

socalnate1 13y ago

I love Pulse, it's my favorite mobile news reader by far.

thecosas 13y ago

Congrats to the pulse team. Also, dammit.

dm8 13y ago

Apparently, LinkedIn paid them 90M - http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/11/linkedin-acquires-pulse-for-90m-in-stock-and-cash/ http://techcrunch.com/2013/04/11/linkedin-acquires-pulse-for... Wow. There are so many RSS readers but congrats to Pulse team on executing well. How it fits into LinkedIn's product roadmap?

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]

flipside 13y ago

I'm optimistic because I love Pulse and Linkedin has definitely been pushing into the news feed space so it makes a lot of sense. Slightly concerned though because of what happened to CardMunch. Either way, grats to the pulse team!

julien_c 13y ago

Way to go Akshay Kothari!

checken 13y ago

I hope they do a better job with Pulse than they have with Rapportive

SurfScore 13y ago

I love Pulse. They built a great app and I'm really happy for them, so this isn't a critique, but were they really worth 90M? I get that most of it was in stock, but damn. I guess it was more of a team/userbase acquisition, similar to the Dropbox/Mailbox deal. Either way, congrats guys!

akavi 13y ago
Isn't stock == cash when the acquiring company is public?
- nuclear_eclipse 13y ago
  Assuming a vesting period, that implies much less liquidity from the deal, and very much relies on the longterm value of the stock. IMO, stock later is worth much less than cash now.
  - SurfScore 13y ago
    Exactly. And stock is typically much cheaper for a company to spend than actual cash. A perfect example of this was the Facebook-Instagram acquisition. It was right before Facebook had their IPO, so it was much cheaper for them. Ironically, since Facebook's share price dropped so quickly after IPO, that billion dollar valuation ended up being closer to $715M source -- http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/24/3551872/facebook-instagram-acquisition-715-million http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/24/3551872/facebook-instagra...
  - hkmurakami 13y ago
    For a company like Linkedin which has been on the market for a while, you can buy a bunch of put options. It comes with a cost obviously, but it's a good hedge for an all stock transaction. IIRC this is what Mark Cuban did when he sold his company to Yahoo!
- ChuckMcM 13y ago
  No. Typically that stock comes with a constraint. When the company I helped start was acquired in 1999 there was an 18 month 'hold' on selling stock resulting from the transaction. The math did not work out in my favor :-)

bambax 13y ago

I don't understand LinkedIn (anymore). Their business model seems to be to source candidates to recruiters. This may be good for recruiters, but for candidates? I'm not so sure. It's certainly better to have an overall strong online presence (Twitter / Github (if relevant) / personal blog) than contacts on LinkedIn that don't mean anything. Groups are full of spam. The website is incredibly unresponsive. They bought the excellent IndexTank technology and team a while ago, and promptly shut it down (the tech was open sourced though, which is more than can be said for a lot of acquisitions). It seems they only keep on living because people are somewhat afraid to delete their profile; but everything inside LinkedIn feels dead. And now Pulse. Who would go to LinkedIn for news?? Pulse says "The company shares (...) our belief in the power of knowledge and elevated discussion". Elevated discussion? On LinkedIn? Come on!

aashaykumar92 13y ago
Yeah that quote drives me crazy. LinkedIn already has those news stories at the top of our home pages--I have shared a couple but I have never seen anyone engage in mine nor others' posts. Unless LinkedIn plans to create a forum for news while utilizing Pulse, I don't get that statement from Pulse. But again, they'd be losing to already-popular forums. More than anything, I just hope LinkedIn doesn't shut Pulse down. It would be a huge loss to many of Pulse's loyal users.
- muratmutlu 13y ago
  The top posts seem to have a lot of comments (600+) and likes http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/whoToFollow?strategy=post7&trk=who_to_follow-N http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/whoToFollow?strategy=post... I've been using groups a lot recently and if you post the right stuff it sparks a good discussion. Also sends a fair bit of traffic to my blog. Agree that the site is unresponsive, badly designed and considering their valuation it seems baffling the state it is in.
- muratmutlu 13y ago
  The top posts seem to have a lot of comments (600+) and likes http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/whoToFollow?strategy=post7&trk=who_to_follow-N http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/whoToFollow?strategy=post... I've been using groups a lot recently and if you post the right stuff it sparks a good discussion. Also sends a fair bit of traffic to my blog. Agree that the site is unresponsive, badly designed and considering their valuation it seems baffling the state it is in.

GuiA 13y ago

Congrats to the pulse founders for entering the millionaire club. Sucks that they have to pretend to be excited about joining LinkedIn and likely suffer there for a few years, but every rose has a thorn.

richiezc 13y ago
My friends startup was acquired by LinkedIn, 2 year vesting period that is heavily backloaded.
- fourstar 13y ago
  Please elaborate. Backloaded? In terms of what?
  - fananta 13y ago
    In terms of cash. So they might get 10% up front and larger portions as they near the end of the vesting period.

zachgalant 13y ago

congrats, guys!