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You might want to read ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com. Usually this kind of announcement is followed by another one, 9 months-2 years later, of the service be
by jblow 11y ago
You might want to read ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com.
Usually this kind of announcement is followed by another one, 9 months-2 years later, of the service being shut down.
This is just the first step of that pattern again.
- PaulHoule 11y agoThere is also the announcement that the people who started this company quit Google because they couldn't get anything done there and now they have a new startup...
- aaronbrethorst 11y agohttp://www.attendly.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/crowley-google.png http://www.attendly.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/crowley-g...
- Nilzor 11y agoFunny how everybody is "excited", "delighted" and "ecstatic" about being acquired by a mega corporate.
- urda 11y agoEspecially by Google, who has done a lot more damage to purchased companies instead of growing them.
- bsaul 11y agoYour comment made me realize i can't remember seeing promising medium or small size companies merge and make this kind of announcement. I mean, you could very well see this kind of company merge with people doing an advanced IDE, or even corporate frameworks. Maybe they usually prefer to create commercial partnerships rather than merge shares.
- notahacker 11y agoBuying a smaller company gives the owners control over a resource. Merging with a similar sized company means relinquishing control for no immediate return.
- jessaustin 11y agoA company that is well-capitalized and having trouble growing might buy a similarly-sized company just for the next couple quarters of revenue. Of course that isn't a good reason but it is an "immediate return".
- dragonwriter 11y ago> Your comment made me realize i can't remember seeing promising medium or small size companies merge and make this kind of announcement. Small and medium sized companies merge all the time (but its rarely big news, because small companies), but "promising" ones in the Silicon Valley swing-for-the-fences startup sense probably don't as much, probably because that kind of merger doesn't provide the kind of exit startup investors are looking for or increase the perceived likely size of the eventual exit enough to warrant the dilution.
- rifung 11y agoPeople in industry seem to be "excited" about everything nowadays. The word is completely overused
- Zikes 11y agoI'm genuinely excited about a lot of things, and I don't know that pulling out a thesaurus for the sake of avoiding that particular word would help anybody.
- Ezhik 11y agoWhen with enough PR-speak a big layoff or a complete exit from a market can be made to sound 'exciting', something like this really isn't so bad. Getting acquired doesn't have to feel so bad for a startup. The optimist can see it as a way to continue working on their project without worrying about profitability or investors, and the pessimist still got paid.
- s73v3r 11y agoUsually that means you get a fat paycheck. And far more resources than you had before.
- SandB0x 11y agoIt is probably true though. It must be incredibly stressful trying to make your product successful and to try and keep both your investors and loved ones happy. If a struggling company is acqui-hired it presumably offers some long-term financial stability and a return to a more sane lifestyle for the founders and employees.
- frogpelt 11y agoIt's not that funny (weird). People want to be successful. One of the clearest ways that success is measured in the startup space is by a larger company buying you out. Of course they're excited.
- taytus 11y agoWe really need to stop portraying aquihires as something bad or some kind of terrible failure. Congrats to the Pixate team.
- eloisant 11y agoAqui-hire is usually a failure, because it means the company's product has so little value the the whole value of the company is reduced to its team. It's often a "let's recoup our losses" move for the investors.
- myth_buster 11y agoI'm really curious how the acqui-hire model is sustainable given the disconnect between expectation and reality. Surely there would be internal models to see the attrition rate of acqui-hires and questions asked whether the money paid was accrued in the form of services to the company. I read somewhere that the acquisition team works on a model similar to an investment bank which kind of explains this disconnect between what's pitched and what eventually transpires.
- boomzilla 11y agoThere is a lot of "good will" in acqui-hires.
- Zikes 11y agoTo be fair, even if this were a brand new product from Google people would still be speculating on how long before they decide to shut it down.
- spydum 11y agotrue.. the problem i suspect is people tend to idolize brands and products when they are young, precisely because they are young and are seen as the underdog. As they age, its incredibly difficult (I dare say impossible only for the sheer lack of evidence to the contrary) to maintain that reputation. As the movie saying goes: "You either die a hero, or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain"
- bitmapbrother 11y agoHow dare companies shut down things that aren't profitable. Ever since Reader shutdown Google seems to be the "go to" reference, but the reality is that it happens a lot. Just look at all of the things Microsoft has either shutdown or discontinued. The list is longer than Google's.
- Zikes 11y agoOh, I'm in complete agreement, though I was rather disappointed at Reader's shutdown. I only meant to cite it as a "running gag" of the tech community.
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