

Early Supporters of Oculus VR Denounce Facebook Buyout - bane
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/03/26/early-supporters-of-oculus-vr-unnerved-upset-by-facebook-purchase/

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cwright_dabo
Apparently I am in the minority thinking most of the reactions are
shortsighted and reactionary. Facebook's market cap is over 150 billion; Mark
isn't going to make a huge acquisition like this without good reason.

The idea he would do it to curry favor is silly. It is surprising to see some
knee-jerk reaction from people who should know better. Instagram and many
other acquisitions by Facebook have not been hurt or otherwise negatively
impacted.

~~~
bane
It's because all of the universe of things that people thought you might get
to do with an OR, all the fun 3d modeling apps, games, virtual worlds, garage
developed MMOs, space ship simulators etc....all of cosmos of possibilities,
and yes, "social" was but _one_ of them, just shrunk down to just "social" and
probably free to play garbage with a credit card slot right on the headset. A
dynamic, explosive vision for the world is not something that's in Facebook's
DNA. Convenient public and private messaging services are.

FB can't even ship a decent Android app that provides access to their main
product-line.

More importantly, they have piss poor developer relations, and unless FB is
planning on building the entire thing themselves, very few people are going to
strap themselves in so they can check their facebook feed.

The acquisition turned the endless possibilities of a virtual multiverse into
an advertisement laden idiocracy.

[http://i.imgur.com/NPLjenz.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/NPLjenz.jpg)

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cottonseed
I don't understand why customers from Kickstarter think they have any say in
what the business does. I generally think the Kickstarter pitch is misleading.
"Backing" a Kickstarter doesn't mean your investing in the company, it means
you're pre-purchasing the product. I never saw this as a good deal for
Kickstarter customers, who take the risk of investment but don't get any of
the rewards.

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falcolas
Kickstarter has never been about pre-ordering a product. It's about supporting
a business; the gifts are simply incentives to invest certain amounts. That
some companies treat them as pre-orders has no impact of the actual goal of
kickstarter campaigns - getting money to fund an activity.

There is no guarantee that even if a kickstarter campaign is successful you'll
get "what you paid for". A company following through with its kickstarter
incentives is a bonus, not the end goal.

Relevant to this particular discussion, do you think that Marcus Pearson
really gave $10,000 just to receive a dev kit?

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ChuckMcM
It does sort of position Kickstarter is a seed round without a loss of equity.

So Oculus Rift (OR) raises 2.4M$ on Kickstarter.[1] Lets say this was a seed
party round (with 9,522 angel investors) and that got the Angels 15% of the
company, now OR go on to raise $90M, so assuming that $90M stays under 50% in
the cap table, maybe the 15% dilutes down to 5%.

And Facebook comes along and buys the thing for $2B. That 5% pays back the
initial investors $10,500 each. (which would be huge for people who put in
$10, and still "ok" for people who put in $5,000 (7 people). The bulk would
have turned $350 into $10,500 which is a nice return.

Ok so given the JOBS act loosening up the requirements on early investors, who
thinks that a future KickStarter might off '1 preferred share' as part of the
rewards?

[1] [https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-
rift-...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1523379957/oculus-rift-step-
into-the-game)

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chrismcb
FTA: "What was the point of the Kickstarter campaign, “if you sell out to a
giant company like Facebook?” " I don't get this. the point of the kickstarter
campaign was to support the company, get it started, and get your award. If
there wasn't a kickstarter, to well kick start the company, it probably
wouldn't have lasted long enough to sell out.

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jamesie
This headline could be auto-generated:

"Early Supports of <startup|product> Denounce <big company> Buyout"

then do a sentiment analysis on Twitter to support the headline.

