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Why I Sold My Company and Didn't Tell Anyone for a Year
- ohitsdom 11y agoCongrats, and good read. Off-topic: referring to the business as "she" comes across as very weird to me. Is this common? I know some women can find that offensive.
- eugeneionesco 11y agoWhat the fuck?...
- superamit 11y agore: Gender-specific pronouns for inanimates - English is weird. It sounds right to my ear as "she", but the opposite to others. Historically if a gender is required, male is used, but some find that offensive. On the other hand, certain inanimate objects (countries, vehicles of many kinds) are referred to as "she" simply because of tradition. My girlfriend is learning a little Hindi right now and she finds it maddening that nouns are gendered male or female seemingly at random. I can tell her which is which, but as far as I know there's no system. Some are just male, some are female. Anyway, "it" sounded weird in that sentence. I should have just rewritten it. :)
- ohitsdom 11y agoYeah, I tried finding links to go with my comment, but information I found was varied and often contradictory. English is definitely weird. I was just curious what others thought (while hopefully not derailing the comments). "It" sounds way more appropriate to me. Anyway, back to the actual content...
- bbgm 11y agoI grew up in India (admittedly in an English-speaking household), and even today I get my genders mixed up all the time. It makes no sense whatsoever.
- adventured 11y agoIt's not uncommon. Women don't have any unique ownership of the term "she." If you refer to your dog lucy, you might say: she likes that toy. People sometimes refer to their vehicles as her or she and give them cute names. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/she http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/she 2) "used to refer to one regarded as feminine (as by personification) <she was a fine ship>"
- worklogin 11y agoI know some people can find a picture of a kitten offensive. Are there legitimate reasons to feel that way?
- thret 11y agoBecause it is unnecessary in English, when you refer to something inanimate as male or female it implies you have an emotional attachment. I refer to my car as 'it', my girlfriend calls it a 'she'. When she parked it into a pole she cried and I shrugged.
- cekanoni 11y agoLife has a lot of battles, and you just won one of the biggest. :)
- srameshc 11y agoCongrats & Great story ! This level of passion is probably required to start and run a company.
- sqeaky 11y agoCongrats! Giant font is giant. Is this some kind of style decision I am unaware of. It is hard to read unless the window is maximized. What is mobile experience like?
- bigmonato 11y agoIt's great to read on a 30" work monitor :-).
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- cekanoni 11y agomobile is fine, font is ok. - htc one
- jansenvt 11y agoLarge typography is trending. Personally I love it because I have a 30inch monitor that sits further back. It's way better for the eyes and just feels more natural.
- dexterdog 11y agoThat's why I use the embedded reader on premii so I didn't notice it until you mentioned the issue and I went to the actual blog page.
- thatguyhughesy 11y agoGreat read, thanks for sharing and best of luck with all your future endeavours!
- gjkood 11y agoCongrats and thanks for sharing Amit. Glad you have a bucket list and are ticking off items in there. Hope you have the time to get them completed. You only have one life. Make it count. Tomorrow may never come. Take care of yourself and your family first. Don't keep important things pending if you can help it. Don't leave home in a bad mood or saying things to your SO that you will regret if you don't get the opportunity to remedy. Also, try and take life insurance when you are young, healthy and are not assailed by chronic ailments. Your family will appreciate the security that you provide after you are gone. When we are young, we feel invincible and forget the long range picture. Sorry to sound morbid. Peace.
- jsprogrammer 11y agoYour post lacks the motivation to care for the long range picture when the perceived full picture would appear to obviate all that came before it.
- gluecode 11y agoI know you! Gluecode.
- gjkood 11y agoThats an understatement SK :).
- oddevan 11y agoThanks for sharing. My wife is a big photography enthusiast, and I think we may have both applied to work for Photojojo in the past. :) Anyway, I wanted to say that I am incredibly impressed by this. It's not every day that I hear the story of someone setting out to build a sustainable company^; and, from what limited perspective I have, you seem to have succeeded. Bravo, sir; bravo. I wish you all the best. ^edit: So I'm not misinterpreted here, by "sustainable company" I mean one whose goal is to grow slowly and profitably on its own, not quickly in hopes of an IPO or acquisition. Those companies have their place, and it's a good place. I just like to hear the other stories too.
- superamit 11y agoThanks for the kind words, Evan. Glad to hear you guys are fans of Photojojo (and photography)!
- par 11y agoThe amount of times you refer to the business as 'she' or 'her' is a bit off putting to me.
- senorprogrammer 11y agoSpend some time around sailors or classic car restorers. They'll really freak you out.
- sbierwagen 11y agoGendered pronouns for objects may be considered normal in those fields, but they are not considered normal in business. I upvoted GP because I dislike seeing them used to refer to corporations.
- bbcbasic 11y agoGood job we don't speak French then.
- superamit 11y ago"she" is also often used when referring to countries, though the only reason for it (and for vehicles) that I've found is tradition. English is strange. I used a gendered pronoun in the second sentence to create mystery in the lede (if didn't already know it was about a company being sold when you hit the post, you don't mind out until further down) and go back to "it" afterward.
- __z 11y agoI am neither a sailor nor into classic cars but I refer to all boats and all vehicles (not just ones I own or feel affinity towards) as "she." Always, always, always. "She's my baby" is a common expression for anything that you value highly - I could totally see someone referring to their company with female pronouns. Feels very natural to my ear.
- tectec 11y agoSome languages use pronouns differently. Dutch people sometimes use "he" or "she" when referring to objects even when speaking English, because they are used to doing that in Dutch. So it could be that English is not his first language.
- ninebrows 11y agoOften lately, I have been hearing many people suffering from cancer especially in US. What might be the reason for this? Why are so many people in US affected by cancer?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- bjwbell 11y agoLack of pathogens. For example in 2013 ~198 million people had Malaria and ~500k died from it, mostly in Africa. It's hard to die from cancer when you already died from something else.
- saryant 11y agoConfirmation bias? The cancer rate in the US is roughly in the middle of the pack for rich nations.
- jasonmp85 11y agoIn this case, probably survivorship bias.
- __z 11y ago1) People aren't dying of other stuff. Stuff that used to cause massive amounts of death just isn't as likely anymore. Infections are now routinely cured with antibiotics. Vaccines prevent deadly disease. Hygiene and health and safety standards across the board reduce death from other causes dramatically - there has been an increase in laws regarding health and safety in every facet of life. People are living longer. The older you are the more likely you are to have cancer. It is hypothesized that given enough time everyone develops some kind of cancer even if microscopic (more on that later) Automobile fatalities (the thing most likely to kill young adults) are down dramatically. This is due to safer cars and a decrease of things like DUIs due to public awareness and a huge increase in prosecution. My grandpa told me in the 70s police would routinely pull him over, see he was drunk, and tell him just to go home. New safety features are required almost every year on automobiles. People take infant car seats very seriously nowadays. When I was a kid as soon as I could sit upright by myself I was out of the car seat. 2)There's not a lot we don't know about cancer still. We know that it is a combination of genes and environment that cause it and there are things you can do to lessen your likelihood of getting it such as not smoking... but overall we haven't done a whole lot to prevent most types of cancer and still have a lot to go in completely understanding it. Which specific genes and which specific environmental factors are still somewhat of a mystery, I mean we know some stuff but still not enough. Some types like cervical cancer are largely (but not completely) preventable with routine pap tests but that's the exception. 3) Increased screening leads to an increase in detection of benign and asymptomatic cancer. This turns people into cancer patients who wouldn't have otherwise been cancer patients without screening. This is kinda a new thing. We used to believe that cancer runs one course - that it started at stage 1 and grew continuously until it spread all over your body and killed you - so catching cancer while it is small and treatable will prevent it from spreading and becoming deadly. We are learning from experience that isn't always the case, some can develop so slowly that there's no way it will cause problems in your lifetime. Take prostate cancer for example - the PSA test is a blood test that was developed to detect asymptomatic prostate cancer. The PSA test is no longer recommended because it lead to an increase in cancer diagnoses but a very modest corresponding decrease in cancer related deaths. That tells us that some men who would be diagnosed with prostate cancer if they had the PSA test wouldn't ever be diagnosed without it. Routine mammograms have detected thousands more very early stage cancer (Ductal Carcinoma In Situ) than ever before. The numbers tell us some of these new diagnoses wouldn't have progressed (and maybe would have regressed). Everything requires treatment though because we don't know which small tumor will become deadly and which one won't. More info on this is here: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/11/overkill-atul-gawande http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/05/11/overkill-atul-g... >we’ve assumed, he says, that cancers are all like rabbits that you want to catch before they escape the barnyard pen. But some are more like birds—the most aggressive cancers have already taken flight before you can discover them, which is why some people still die from cancer, despite early detection. And lots are more like turtles. They aren’t going anywhere. Removing them won’t make any difference. >Over the past two decades, we’ve tripled the number of thyroid cancers we detect and remove in the United States, but we haven’t reduced the death rate at all. In South Korea, widespread ultrasound screening has led to a fifteen-fold increase in detection of small thyroid cancers. Thyroid cancer is now the No. 1 cancer diagnosed and treated in that country. But, as Welch points out, the death rate hasn’t dropped one iota there, either. (Meanwhile, the number of people with permanent complications from thyroid surgery has skyrocketed.) It’s all over-diagnosis. We’re just catching turtles. The other thing is you may just be hearing about it more or it might just be talked about more than it used to be.
- bjwbell 11y agoAmit's probability of death http://tumblr.amitgupta.com/post/85539436331/filed-under-tabs-i-keep-open-in-my-browser http://tumblr.amitgupta.com/post/85539436331/filed-under-tab... He's at about year 3 which looks a LOT better than the earlier years.
- FrankenPC 11y agoCongrats for making it through the valley of death unscathed. When I finish a massive project I descend into depression for months. I can't move. Then, I come out and am ready to give birth to the next great idea. Frankly, you landed that plane so gracefully that I'm in awe. You're an inspiration to me.
- jasonmp85 11y agoMaybe I missed something in this article, but did the employees know? Or did they essentially get their labor sold off to another boss a year ago and were none the wiser? Can such a thing even be done, legally speaking (maybe if the poster were the sole owner)? Is it literally true that he didn't tell anyone for a year?
- nhangen 11y agoI don't see why not? They are still getting paid according to contract, and can leave at any time.
- jasonmp85 11y agoPeoples' decision to work is about more than just "are you paying me money?" If my company got sold to e.g. the Family Research Council, I'd like to know that my work is now benefiting an organization I vehemently oppose. Obviously an employment contract might spell out whether I must be privy to such a sale, but I was wondering whether disclosure is compulsory even in the absence of such a guarantee in an employment contract.
- jessaustin 11y agoWhat if the company were always owned by the FRC, and you just didn't know? What options would you have other than quitting, once you learned?
- forgingahead 11y agoBy the same token, do you feel compelled to tell your employer when you are interviewing for other jobs, talking to recruiters, or simply bouncing ideas off friends/potential business partners for a company you may start?
- jasonmp85 11y agoThe author has responded and clarified that of course everyone knew as soon as the deal was finalized, so my whole point is moot. The analogous case is not when you're interviewing for other jobs, but when you have taken one. At that point, yes, I feel compelled to tell my current employer. If some sort of shareholder vote were necessary to sell, then they'd need to know ahead of time. If not, the sale could happen, but employees should know immediately thereafter. And it sounds like they did!
- phreanix 11y agoGlad to see you alive, battling, and bucketlisting, Amit. As a huge fan of Photojojo (considered applying a few times even), I am happy see that it will be in capable hands that you trust. Make every second count and leave that shutter wide open. :)