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I'm puzzled by this acquisition from FriendFeed founder & CEO Paul Buchheit's perspective. As employee #23 at Google, Paul was already independently wealthy whe

by mhartl 17y ago

I'm puzzled by this acquisition from FriendFeed founder & CEO Paul Buchheit's perspective. As employee #23 at Google, Paul was already independently wealthy when he started FriendFeed. Though getting richer seems a likely secondary motive, I always figured FriendFeed was primarily a way for Paul to have the excitement of running his own company. Now he will (presumably) become an employee at Facebook, in exchange for an amount of money that can't possibly represent the bulk of his net worth. That doesn't seem like a particularly good outcome to me. Does anyone know any different?

far33d 17y ago
I don't think that Paul Bucheit is CEO
- mhartl 17y ago
  It's surprisingly hard to find out (http://gigaom.com/2009/06/24/with-file-sharing-friendfeed-rides-the-collaboration-wave/ http://gigaom.com/2009/06/24/with-file-sharing-friendfeed-ri... was the best reference I could find), but it seems that you're right. It looks like FriendFeed cofounder Bret Taylor is the CEO. My mistake.
zaidf 17y ago
Goals change. Especially when faced with cash and wealth.
jsz0 17y ago
I'm guessing he's interested in social networking on a broader scale than just getting rich off it. Running your own business can be exciting but being involved in something that is fundamentally changing the way humans interact with each other on a massive scale is probably pretty neat too.
nadim 17y ago
http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/12/is-there-more-to-life-than-money.html http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/12/is-there-more-to-li...
- mhartl 17y ago
  I remember reading that post when he wrote it. From the post: That's why, even though I don't financially need to work, I choose to work (and end up staying up until 4am pushing new code). It's why we created FriendFeed, to have a great place to work, a place where we can build great products and have happy users. Of course I'd also like to earn a few billion dollars, and I plan to make all of our employees very wealthy, but that's more like a bonus. Rather than undermining it, I think this underscores my point. It's precisely because there's more to life than money that I'm surprised he was willing to sell. I would have expected only a ~$1 billion price tag to tempt him.
alaskamiller 17y ago
I'm going to guess that the fact that Mark Zuckerberg showed up is a sign to assure him that he's going to be a very well-respected and well-tended to employee at Facebook with access to a bigger engineering team, a huge user base, all the resources he wants, and maybe even a chance to get a crack at Facebook software itself. That's pretty enticing.

by mhartl 17y ago

far33d 17y ago

I don't think that Paul Bucheit is CEO

mhartl 17y ago
It's surprisingly hard to find out (http://gigaom.com/2009/06/24/with-file-sharing-friendfeed-rides-the-collaboration-wave/ http://gigaom.com/2009/06/24/with-file-sharing-friendfeed-ri... was the best reference I could find), but it seems that you're right. It looks like FriendFeed cofounder Bret Taylor is the CEO. My mistake.

zaidf 17y ago

Goals change. Especially when faced with cash and wealth.

jsz0 17y ago

I'm guessing he's interested in social networking on a broader scale than just getting rich off it. Running your own business can be exciting but being involved in something that is fundamentally changing the way humans interact with each other on a massive scale is probably pretty neat too.

nadim 17y ago

http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/12/is-there-more-to-life-than-money.html http://paulbuchheit.blogspot.com/2007/12/is-there-more-to-li...

mhartl 17y ago
I remember reading that post when he wrote it. From the post: That's why, even though I don't financially need to work, I choose to work (and end up staying up until 4am pushing new code). It's why we created FriendFeed, to have a great place to work, a place where we can build great products and have happy users. Of course I'd also like to earn a few billion dollars, and I plan to make all of our employees very wealthy, but that's more like a bonus. Rather than undermining it, I think this underscores my point. It's precisely because there's more to life than money that I'm surprised he was willing to sell. I would have expected only a ~$1 billion price tag to tempt him.

alaskamiller 17y ago

I'm going to guess that the fact that Mark Zuckerberg showed up is a sign to assure him that he's going to be a very well-respected and well-tended to employee at Facebook with access to a bigger engineering team, a huge user base, all the resources he wants, and maybe even a chance to get a crack at Facebook software itself. That's pretty enticing.