
How I Almost Got Acquired By Apple And Then Snubbed - kanny96
http://kandarpmadhav.wordpress.com/2010/06/17/itunes-semantic-search-project-derailed-by-apple/
======
drusenko
Welcome to the wild ride of dealing with large corporations. What you
encountered here is absolutely standard -- in fact, I'd say it's actually
better than what you'd get when dealing with most large companies, since Steve
actually replied back at the end with a "not interested".

You may have put a lot of hope in the "if you've already incorporated, we
could acquire your company" line but I can guarantee they didn't put a lot of
thought into it.

They were just talking about hiring you (with "acquisition" as the legal
mechanism, or not). Maybe with a bit of a hiring bonus.

The standard play when dealing with any large company is always "hurry up and
wait". For whatever reason, this is just something you need to get used to.

Do you really expect either Steve or this engineering manager to be replying
within 48 hours? I think the second you started badgering them and brought
Steve back in the loop, you were toast.

~~~
hartror
Exactly, given the great opportunity he had a chance at the author should have
been far more patient and dare I say a bit more professional.

The experience I've had with dealing with big corps is very much "hurry up and
wait". Often this is a symptom of the structure and politics of bigger
institutions, where you don't have to convince just the person you are dealing
with but convince them to convince others. If they decide to try to bring you
in it is their reputation on the line, a reputation that could be damaged even
if the deal never goes anywhere.

I've been caught in the middle of some nasty office politics that have totally
killed negotiations because I had the wrong guy championing my cause.

Oh and does it strike anyone else as a bit unprofessional to go posting
correspondence to the world? I'd certainly think twice before dealing with
anyone who had done this in the past, talk about burning bridges! Or am I
alone in expecting a certain measure of privacy in my business comms?

~~~
xelipe
I agree 100%, the author comes off a bit unprofessional, pushy, and demanding.
You can't even begin to imagine how many people send in suggestions, feature
requests, ideas, etc. to companies like Apple, Google, and Microsoft. I know
because in middle school I sent such an email to Capcom on killer game ideas.
After some time I received a nice letter in the company letterhead from them
encouraging me to stay in school and excel in math. Even though I didn't get
acquired or got a job, that letter meant so much to me.

------
rit
Is it possible that the picture the author had in his head of "Being acquired"
was skewing things here? I don't see any clear indications that an
"Acquisition" was ever in the offing here. He emailed Steve, Steve forwarded
it to an engineer who the author was lucky enough to hear back from at all.

Most likely they looked at what he was outputting and weren't impressed, or
had another solution in mind. I'm assuming (and hoping for his sake) from my
interpretation that he never submitted actual code to them - just output.

~~~
kenjackson
If you believe the OP the potential for acquisition was noted here: "Next he
says that if I have incorporated the startup, Apple could acquire it or he
could hire me to work with him."

Who knows.

I will say that it was handled very poorly. At the point they weren't
interested they should have said it rather than just not responding to email.

~~~
rit
Emailing Steve the first time he was lucky it got handed off to someone in
engineering.

But to continue to pester the engineer and worse, Steve... What kind of
response do you expect?

Further, does he think the software engineer has nothing to do but work on
this project with him?

~~~
pinstriped_dude
In reading the email communication and also paying attention to the timeline,
I did not get the impression that the OP was "pestering" the Apple Manager. He
was cordial and gently reminding that he was promised a response and had not
received one.

If anything, I got the impression that the Apple Manager was stalling (or
maybe he really was ill and it really took him 10 days - from May 4 to May 14
- to "get back on his feet")

~~~
hugh3
_If anything, I got the impression that the Apple Manager was stalling (or
maybe he really was ill and it really took him 10 days - from May 4 to May 14
- to "get back on his feet")_

Or else he's just a busy guy with a lot on his plate apart from this one
project which he's not _that_ interested in with some guy who keeps pestering
him.

~~~
robosox
Especially considering the timeframe - right around WWDC. This eng manager was
likely scrambling like crazy to get ready for that.

Also, if the manager was considering hiring this guy, he was probably looking
not just at his code, but evaluating what kind of a person he is and culture
fit. If they're hustling to get ready for WWDC while this guy keeps emailing
and pointing out what competitors like Google are doing (as if they don't know
this), he may have concluded that this is someone he just doesn't want to work
with, regardless of the guy's algorithm.

~~~
ruchi
He could have simply said that he will take a month or so to thoroughly
evaluate and get back to him. Wouldn't that be a better approach?

~~~
robosox
Yes, it would have - I'm not arguing against that point, only speculating why
this guy didn't hear back from Apple.

------
andrewljohnson
You sound awfully pushy, and can't you just take a hint? I have been not
called back by women, customers, partners, and everyone else. They have
expressed interest and left me hanging.

At first, you be persistent, and you get more dates and more contracts because
of it. But you also learn when to take a hint, and Apple gave you several.

~~~
drivebyacct
If a woman said she's interested in you, never calls back, and says SHE will
call YOU, you wouldn't have hope and stay interested?

I don't understand why this thread seems to be going out of their way to shit
on this guy. It's not like Apple said "eh" and didn't respond, they kept
saying they'd get back to him and never bothered.

It's called leading someone on, it's rude, and I'm startled at the number of
excuses that are being made for this guy.

~~~
carbocation
> If a woman said she's interested in you, never calls back, and says SHE will
> call YOU, you wouldn't have hope and stay interested?

Wait, what? This is the classic way by which someone expresses that they are
not interested without saying so directly. Don't call us; we'll call you.

~~~
drivebyacct
That's shitty and I still can't believe people are making excuses for this
type of behavior. It's pathetic.

~~~
drivebyacct
Most pathetic downmodding I've seen on HN. This isn't even passive aggressive,
this is just being a shitty human being. Fuck you all.

It's really cool that HN is going the reddit route of downmodding comments
that they disagree with. Although I don't even think my comments would have
been downmodded over there. Because we're all hip and "hackers" at HN we just
tolerate and expect people to be shitty to each other in the business world.
Real cool guys.

~~~
jfarmer
People are downvoting you because your response was so acerbic. This reply
isn't helping.

~~~
drivebyacct
No it's not. Point out what was so "acerbic" in my original reply. I've read
it twice now and there's nothing out of line in it.

The only emotion I injected was "I am startled". Yeah, really `acid in temper
or mood`. Especially when * ironically* I was addressing the acerbic comments
being pointed at the author for ACTUALLY BELIEVING people when they told him
they were interested.

Is it opposite day on HN or did I miss a memo?

~~~
jfarmer
I didn't say it was out of line, just acerbic.

"shitty" "can't believe" "pathetic"

Strong words. HN will generally downvote strong displays of negative emotions,
especially if it's something purely subjective.

It was also slightly accusatory, saying other HN users were "making excuses"
for this behavior. There's some ambiguity as to whether you meant the behavior
itself was pathetic or the people "making excuses" were pathetic. I think you
meant the latter.

Maybe this is an easier way to understand it: imagine you're in a room filled
with people talking about this issue, and you stood up and said what you said
out loud. How do you expect people to react? Positively?

I can't believe I'm explaining this in such detail. Haha.

~~~
drivebyacct
I would call people out for excusing leading people on and lying to their
faces. In public. In a room full of people that disagree with me. If I am in
the wrong and downvotes (or in our analogy looks of disapproval or murmurs of
hatred in my direction) are my punishment I will take them proudly. I think
excusing the behavior is nearly as shameful as being the person doing the
lying and deceiving.

I can't believe _I'm_ explaining this in such deal. I meant the usage quite
literally. I'm shocked that an intelligent community such as HN is excusing
the behavior because it's supposedly "normal". I think the treatment and thus
the excuses are "shitty" which doesn't have a formal definition for me to
rattle off, but suffice it to say I think it covers "unacceptable behavior"
which is a category that lying and leading people on generally falls into.

~~~
jfarmer
You go, girl.

------
abstractbill
This is not what "almost getting acquired" looks like. At a stretch it might
be what almost getting _hired_ looks like, but even that would be pushing it I
think.

Of course it would be nice if people would just tell you when they're not
interested, but generally nobody does that. Adjust your filters accordingly -
if someone doesn't seem _excited_ , they're probably not interested at all.

~~~
Alex3917
Exactly. Startups get acquired because the executives at the big company like
the founders and have been friends with them for a long time, not because
they've solved some semantic problem. The poster doesn't really seem to
understand how these things work.

~~~
abstractbill
_Startups get acquired because the executives at the big company like the
founders and have been friends with them for a long time..._

Maybe it happens, but this has not been my experience, or the experience of
several of my friends who have had their startups acquired.

~~~
Alex3917
If you have enough power to purchase another company, you're probably making
at least 500k year. If the company you acquire does great, then you'll
probably get a small bonus. And if they tank, you'll get fired. Thus the
individuals within the company doing the acquiring have a strong incentive to
be extremely conservative. (Unless there are unusual circumstances, like a
stock market bubble, some new technology, or a competitor buying a rival
startup.)

So basically to get acquired, you need to look like you're not going to
embarrass the person doing the acquiring. The best way to do this is to have a
longterm relationship with that person and their colleagues. This makes you
feel like much more of a known entity in the eyes of the acquirer. Because at
the end of the day, regardless of what the book say you never really know what
you're getting when you buy a company. Everything piece of the company could
be independently audited, but that's not going to stop a critical 5M dollar
machine from breaking in half the day after you buy the business.

Anyway I'm not an expert, this is just what I've heard from other people who
have been acquired.

~~~
alain94040
_If you have enough power to purchase another company, you're probably making
at least 500k year. If the company you acquire does great, then you'll
probably get a small bonus. And if they tank, you'll get fired_

I wish (speaking from my own experience). It may be true for very large
companies acquiring really small ones, but there is an entire world out there
of acquisitions of small players by slightly larger companies. Neither the
500K salary nor the small bonus apply. Such acquisitions almost look like
mergers: they can make or kill the entire company. We are not talking about a
small bonus here, it's the livehood of the entire startup. It matters a lot.

------
kls
I think continuing to email Steve was his fatal mistake. It shows a manager
that you are willing to jump rank at a moments notice. Some times you have to,
but in this case 3 days go by and the manager says he is sick. Take him at
face value and understand that managers of large corporations are extremely
busy. I am sure that Steve told the manager to pull back after receiving
secondary emails, realizing that this would be a high maintenance relationship
in which he felt that he could ping Steve at a moments notice (a person who is
even more busy)

~~~
btilly
Read the dates again.

The manager said he was sick on May 4. On May 14 he said he was caught up and
would get back next Monday (which is May 17). There was another nudge on
Wednesday, May 19. Almost a week after that, on May 25, Steve gets CCed again.

While I grant that 3 days out due to sickness excuses some tardiness, the
manager was given lots of time to catch up, many opportunities to respond, and
over a week past the promised response time before Steve got CCed again.

~~~
hugh3
Even so, what did he expect was going to happen by CCing Steve Jobs? Did he
think Steve was going to come thundering down to the engineer's office wanting
to know why he hadn't replied to that guy's previous email?

Realistically, I'd say that that kind of move, trying to embarrass someone you
want something from in front of his boss's boss's boss, can only have negative
consequences.

~~~
btilly
My comment was intended to point out that the time spent before escalating was
reasonable, even despite the 3 day sickness.

As for the consequences of trying to escalate, it is true that it tends to
upset the person you escalated in front of. However it is also true that it
can motivate them to actually return to your case. I've seen organizations
where it was a guaranteed disaster to use that strategy, and others where it
was an effective way to get things done.

If I've seen that much variation between organizations within one country, how
much more variation could there be between organizations across multiple
countries with multiple cultures?

~~~
jfarmer
It's reasonable if the engineer in question was actually abandoning his
duties, which he wasn't. The OP was deluded as to the nature of the
conversation -- it was clear from email #1 it was all very non-committal.

------
chaosmachine
As someone who's been through this many times, here's a tip:

Any time someone emails you about acquiring you, hiring you, sponsoring you,
etc, just assume the actual odds of it happening are about 1%, and be happily
surprised if something eventually comes of it.

If they really, really want you, they'll be hitting you up every chance they
get.

~~~
zackattack
I think this is true but there's also a whole range of people who are on the
fence and can be influenced, and to ignore them is a suboptimal and (imo)
losing strategy.

------
sriramk
I actually thought the Apple engineer, Patrick Gates, was super polite - a lot
of people wouldn't even have bothered to respond. And I don't think anyone
ever wanted to acquire anything.

~~~
kenjackson
How is lying being polite? I'd rather get no response than a flat out lie.

If you email Steve Jobs and he says, "I'm sending you a new iPad in the mail.
Just send us your address." Are you happier that he responded then if he
hadn't (except for the fact that you now have a good blog story to tell).

Being polite would have been "thanks for contacting us. As you can imagine
we're swamped with work, but we are interested in this. I'm going to have to
put this on the backburner and get back to it when I can. No promises. I'll
follow up with you when it looks like there's a good fit schedulewise.
Thanks."

~~~
sriramk
Because he isn't lying. Stuff comes up all the time. He was being polite and
I'm betting he genuinely wanted to get to it. I'm sympathetic because I've
done this often - told someone I'll get back to them and then been absolutely
drowned in work. I always hold out hope I'll get back to to it but I never do.

I feel like the Apple engineer is being penalized for being polite. A lot of
people would have just said "Thanks but we're busy". It looks like he
genuinely wanted to look at it but never got around to it. The OP demonstrated
some bad behavior by jumping multiple levels and CCing Jobs. When someone does
that to me and CCs my management chain, he or she rarely gets the help they
want - they've ticked me off and my management chain is going to trust me to
deal with things.

The OP mentions that he posted this just to show how bad Apple's corporate
culture was. Though I doubt that's why this was posted, I actually thought
this showed some good culture from Apple. The CEO CCes someone down the stack
and then _trusts_ his call. That's what you want your management to do.

Across all this, I can't believe the OP thought he was looking at a possible
acquisition by AAPL. At best, Patrick Gates was demonstrating polite engineer
interest. The OP needs to learn to take a hint and how to deal with email
communication.

~~~
kenjackson
"Because he isn't lying. Stuff comes up all the time. He was being polite and
I'm betting he genuinely wanted to get to it. I'm sympathetic because I've
done this often - told someone I'll get back to them and then been absolutely
drowned in work. I always hold out hope I'll get back to to it but I never
do."

I find it hard to believe that you can't spend 30s to shoot a quick email. I
think you "think" you're being polite, but you're not. Leading someone on for
weeks isn't being polite. That girl who you wanted to date, who leads on for a
year, but always has other plans when you go to pick her up isn't being
polite. She may think she is, but really she's being selfish.

"Thanks but we're busy" is the right thing to say if you're busy. And if you
get busy later say, "Hey, we just got busy, gonna need to put this on hold.
Don't know for how long". Took me about 5s to write.

Respect the time of other people as much as you respect your own time (because
apparently your time is so valuable that you can't break 30s to send an
email). That's being polite.

~~~
kenjackson
I agree with everything you wrote, except that I think it was not polite. It's
not how I handle things.

And speaking of bug reports, I used to run a team and when I started they'd
get customer reports and then say "Won't Fix" and delete the report. One of
the first things I did was to make sure every customer got a reply. Sometimes
it was just "Sorry, this bug isn't going to get fixed this release." The
satisfaction from our enthusiast base shot through the ceiling.

Again, I agree with a lot of what you say. The OP didn't handle it well. But
with that said, the engineer still wasn't being polite. I don't think he was a
jerk. As you note, it is common for people in our field to simply not respond.
But it's not how I do thing

Edit: This response is in reference to the post below me.

------
rokhayakebe
I bet every entrepreneur here would loved to see your startup get acquired,
but buddy there were no hint of an acquisition in this guy's communication.
You should have been patient, launch your app and keep the communication
going. Then maybe, maybe, after 2 years they would look into you.

------
nostromo
I feel for this guy -- this is a case of not "speaking American." As an
American who works with foreigners a lot, I hear a lot of complaints about how
we try to let people down nicely instead of being direct. My middle-east
coworkers especially hate this.

Email makes it even worse.

------
starkfist
The interest dropped off right after he submitted the results of the
algorithm. So perhaps the algorithm simply wasn't good. Emailing the CEO with
a novel algorithm idea and then sending in the results is classic crackpot
behavior, not unlike sending your theory of everything to the head of the MIT
physics department. I'm surprised anyone responded at all to the initial
email.

------
Tichy
"Given that search is their strength, it will be imperative on Apple to
provide a more intuitive itunes/app store search and discovery solution to its
users"

No matter if you are right or wrong, I can imagine that Apple doesn't like
being taught about what they should do. I imagine they think they have a
fairly good idea as to what they should do. Maybe your attitude turned them
off a little. Just a guess, though.

------
mkull
IMO you were extremely lucky to get any response whatsoever. If I am Patrick I
would have quickly dumped you in the pester / annoyance category. Bringing
Steve jobs into the mix the second time was fatal, regardless of time frame
this is not something to bother him with.

------
smcl
Even if Apple almost "acquired" you (I don't really get that impression), I'd
say that penning a blog entry complaining about it is not the most productive
thing to do (and might even cause investors in the future to think twice about
getting involved with you).

------
maukdaddy
Apple certainly won't be interested in future projects with this dude.

~~~
yumraj
Good!!

Maybe this dude would do something for Android where his time and effort
would, hopefully, be more appreciated.

~~~
nailer
Or better yet for himself. Make a generic solution to discoverability, rather
than fix one bad implementation or another.

------
jgoewert
What I expected: OP in negotiations with some technology that Apple would like
to pick up to improve its product. OP says something like: "Google and Adobe
do this better. You should talk to them."

What I got: OP at the level of spam mailing Apple saying that he is the #1
superstar Ace to improve iTunes only to be told to "Get Bent."

------
endlessvoid94
You didn't really have any leverage in this situation. If you did, you didn't
express it in a meaningful way.

It's business, not personal. They have so many things going on, it's a bit
like trying to get your resume noticed.

Do something crazy, or obnoxious, or out of the blue that will get you noticed
NOW. Then show them how, if they don't pay attention to you, it will cost them
money.

------
raheemm
The Apple engineer made the mistake of casually talking about "acquiring" or
"hiring". That would greatly raise anyone's expectations and subsequent
anxiety. The other guy made the mistake of being pushy, especially when he
cc'ed Steve - it likely pissed off the Apple engineer and certainly would not
have made a good impression on Steve.

------
portman
_"It is unethical in all cultures to keep someone waiting while you flout the
time commitments."_

I think you mean "impolite", not "unethical". Keeping someone waiting doesn't
really have a moral value one way or another.

Secondly, unless you are Margaret Mead or an anthropologist of equal stature,
you're not qualified to talk about what is polite in ALL cultures. It might be
impolite in YOUR culture, but that doesn't necessarily apply to other
cultures.

------
zaidf
Well if it helps, we held 4 in-person meetings with a company with keen
interest before they went totally cold. Took a few months to get a clear "no."

This wasn't too bad. All things aside, I don't think Apple was interested in
acquiring you. You did the best you could. They did the best they could. I
_really_ don't think you pestering them would matter much if they really
wanted your technology.

------
CoryMathews
Something I still have yet to understand is how people who develop for and
want to improve apple products repeatedly get screwed over by apple. (Granted
he may have been a bit quick to jump to the top in this case)

Then they keep going right back to develop and improve apple products. Why
keep going back?

~~~
hugh3
_Then they keep going right back to develop and improve apple products. Why
keep going back?_

Sunk cost? By the time you've mastered the intricacies of Objective C and a
gazillion NextStep toolbox calls (or whatever they're called nowadays) what
else are you gonna do?

~~~
mishmash
Learn something else??

------
tmsh
I think in dealing with businesses, as an independent developer (or even as a
developer concerned about your long-term career within an organization), you
have to think about things in wireframe. Forget shaders, all that is extra.

Wireframe = bottom line and the business requirements and strategies.
Everything else on top, giving out free WWDC videos, etc., that's all extra.
And it's great when it's available.

But in negotiations you have to look at it in terms of wireframe mode.
Otherwise, you'll focus on the wrong local extrema, etc.

------
adolph
How exactly does a one-entry weblog make it to the front page? Clearly this
guy has some semantic mojo.

Otherwise, the story is dumb because it isn't "almost got acquired." It's
"dude gets excessively excited because of a couple of emails." Just reread the
Panic Audion story for something interesting:
<http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/>

------
mikeryan
Sorry, not interested.

------
jey
The thing to do would have been to develop the app and submit it to the app
store, get users, become popular, etc. Once you had some real traction
acquisition _might_ have been a possibility.

~~~
Terretta
He didn't have the dataset.

~~~
jey
That doesn't seem to have stopped <http://appsaurus.com/>

------
jemfinch
Maybe I'm just naive, but the final email in that conversation:

"""Thanks Steve.

I’m a bit disappointed.

Wish you all the best and looking forward to seeing more innovative products
and services from Apple.

Kandarp"""

sounds very "Thank you sir may I have another?" to me.

~~~
izaidi
Nah, he's just making sure Steve Jobs knows there are no hard feelings.

~~~
zackattack
I agree, but it's the "I'm a bit disappointed" that is weird, because given
his previous communication he's obviously really disappointed.

~~~
nailer
He's saying he's disappointed but it isn't insurmountable and thus he'll get
over it.

------
xsive
I've written some software which I occasionally receive emails about. I'll say
this: if you ask an intelligent question, I will very likely help you.
However, if you follow that up by peppering me with further questions or come
across as demanding/pushy, I'm very likely to ignore you.

This is also generally true for open source projects and I'm not surprised the
same applies for Apple.

OP: you screwed up. you have noone to blame but yourself.

------
pclark
Deals fall through.

------
Murkin
To save time, the gist of it:

1) Author emails Steve Jobs about algorithm to improve Appstore's discover-
ability problem. 2) Steve replies. 3) Author gets strung along by a semi
cooperating engineer. 4) A month and a few emails later, he is told: we are
not interested.

\- At some point the engineer casually mentions that if he (the Author)
incorporated, Apple could acquire him (i.e. hire him).

------
mchristoff
When someone drops out of communication with you for more than a week it
almost always means they're not that interested. This is true for potential
employers, investors, mates, etc. While its unfortunate that people aren't
more direct, the fact is, rejection takes work and provides very little upside
for the person doing the rejecting.

------
Aegean
Its a great insight to how the conversation goes with a large corporation, so
thanks to whoever posted it. However the conversation becomes rather
emotional.

The first email is pretty professional, concisely describing a problem and
solution, which got him the initial probing. But if it turns out to be
negative in the end, its really nobody to blame.

------
joshu
Someone wants to do a deal? Get a face to fact meeting. Get on a plane if you
have to.

------
djb_hackernews
Semantic search? a bounded data set? Hasn't this problem been solved a million
times? Surely Apple has a team with exactly this specialty?

------
cheriot
a) This looks really useful b) Could you create and Android store so people
can benefit from your idea?

------
retube
There's no "almost" about this. far, far, far from almost.

------
andrewstuart
Doesn't look like it.

------
alextingle
There are no angels in this little drama.

~~~
sigzero
Right. Apple could have treated him a bit better and he could have been
professional by not throwing all that up on the net.

------
zaph0d
Talk is cheap. Show me^H^Hus the code.

