
Movie studio takeover - dhruvkar
http://www.cobaltix.com/project2.html
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AlexWest
So, assuming that certain details might have been changed "to protect the
identities of those involved," it may in fact have been Gaikai, a video-game
streaming startup acquired by Sony for 380 million in 2012.

Check out this article, [http://www.cnet.com/news/sony-to-buy-cloud-gaming-
firm-gaika...](http://www.cnet.com/news/sony-to-buy-cloud-gaming-firm-gaikai-
for-380-million/) , in which the CEO denies two weeks before that there is any
deal with Sony, and reportedly "expected well in excess of 500 million" for
the company. Incidentally, Gaikai has an office in Berlin, according to
[https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/gaikai](https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/gaikai)
and their main office is in Orange County, just outside of LA.

EDIT: Gaikai's CTO, Andrew Gault departed some time in the same year as Sony
takeover.

 __ _EDIT 2_ __: The CEO of Gaikai said in an interview,“To give you my real
take on it, I honestly can’t think of a future for the console companies that
don’t include cloud gaming at some point. They can hold out as long as they
want to, but at some point, you don’t want to be the console that can’t do
this. To some extent, I expect all three of them will have this. But we have
to stay Switzerland – we can’t end up competing with anyone. I would like to
see all of them use Gaikai, that’s my fantasy, right? It would be cool.”
Source:[http://www.vg247.com/2012/06/07/dave-perry-shoots-down-
gaika...](http://www.vg247.com/2012/06/07/dave-perry-shoots-down-gaikai-sony-
partnership-rumours/)

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robbiet480
Sorry this article was quite confusing to understand. Who hired them to do
this? What was the goal? I think i'm missing the connection between the firing
at the end and the initial need to do this...

~~~
tehwebguy
Same, here's what I gather:

\- Author is at Cobaltix, tech consulting company.

\- Cobaltix has a Client, unnamed.

\- Client bought 51% of a Studio, unnamed.

\- Sony wanted to buy the whole Studio for $100M

\- Original founders of Studio wanted to hold out for more

\- Client rooted all of Studio's computers and fired CTO and strongarmed CEO
into complying

It's super weird to me, like, why not just tell them you are voting your 51%
shares to sell?

~~~
wodenokoto
Because the original founders have taken the passwords as hostage.

~~~
tehwebguy
Ahhh, this was sort of hard to decipher.

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jordan0day
So, presumably this was all "okay" (or legal at all), because "the client"
owned 51% of the company.

Would it have all suddenly been illegal if "the client" only owned 49%? I'm
very curious about how this all works.

~~~
btilly
_Would it have all suddenly been illegal if "the client" only owned 49%? I'm
very curious about how this all works._

In my non-lawyerly understanding, basically yes. Here is the theory.

If I own something, and you act to deprive me of my rights, then you are a
thief and I am allowed to take certain kinds of action to assert my rights.
But if I take action and you dispute that I have those rights, then you are
allowed to take action of your own up to and including invoking the legal
process. What kinds of action are allowed is a matter of local law. For
instance threatening bodily harm is not allowed, but taking control of key
systems is.

In this case, the act of selling 51% of the company that you run means that
you have agreed that the buyer can make decisions under specified conditions,
even though you created it and may still be running it. That agreement is why
you were paid a (hopefully large) sum of money.

By contrast if you sell 49% of the company, you have agreed to many things,
but not that.

There are many cases where sales might come with complex conditions about when
someone has veto power over certain decisions. That is why a legal review
would have been needed in this case to verify that they were OK to proceed.
But fundamentally you agree to a contract about how decisions will be made,
and are then bound by it.

~~~
btown
Specifically, in certain states, my understanding is that a majority of the
shareholders could take action at any point to permit any actions taken by
Colbaltix, amending bylaws as necessary to bypass, say, any requirements for
unanimous board decisions. I am not a lawyer, but there's a huge difference
between 49% and 51%.

~~~
NickNameNick
I would hope that votes to amend the company charter would be subject to
quorum requirements.

You shouldn't be able to have one faction of the company ownership hold a
board meeting, not allow the rest of the board to be represented, and declare
all of your subsection's decisions as being unanimous.

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LarryMade2
>> ...rendering servers, as they were earning $1m/day...

So the company was pulling in at least around $365M a year... sounds like it
could have been sold for more.

~~~
Mtinie
Potentially. It really depends on what the margins were on the ~$1M/day.

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stevebmark
You should fire whoever wrote this for communication shortcomings that will
eventually damage the company.

~~~
anigbrowl
That's ridiculous, but it is poorly written. The article should explain the
legal situation clearly at the outset, before going on to the entertaining
business of how it conducted its digital repossession operation.

~~~
stevebmark
Writing a blog post can have many correlations to how a person works in a
company/team.

This post has no time put into it at all. The author may be _lazy_ or _not
committed_ to any work/quality.

The blog post has no effort at all put into explaining the circumstances,
making it convoluted. The author _cannot clearly communicate context_ , making
it painful to work with the author on a team that shares complex ideas (such
as algorithms, or system wide changes).

There has clearly been no editing on this post. The author is _sloppy_ , and
_does not research_ what goes into good work.

The story is poorly written, even around simple details. The author cannot
_communicate simple ideas_ clearly.

That this article got through any sort of PR shield at all (likely they have
none?) is strange enough, but it may also imply the author _does not care
/seek out team feedback_, and may not _be willing to entertain the ideas of
colleagues_.

It actually seems like typical founder writing (and behavior). A quick,
efficient one-off, with just enough information to get by.

~~~
mst
I understood it fine, and found it infinitely more pleasant to read than the
post I'm replying to since your excessive use of italics made it read more
like terrible marketing copy than a critique.

------
revelation
Just because you own it doesn't mean you are free to do whatever with it. Your
pet is property but you still can't torture it.

They have an obligation to all shareholders, 49% or 1. What happens if this
little stunt goes haywire?

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brianstorms
Wondering if this was Left Bank Pictures [1].

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_Bank_Pictures](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_Bank_Pictures)

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justathrow2k
This seems all sorts of shades of unethical.

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astrodust
If they had a deal in writing, and the partners were trying to squeeze more
out by threatening, that's certainly unethical on their part.

This company was just doing their job.

