

Google's YouTube Founder/CEO + Google's AdMob Founder Both Step Down - Scott_MacGregor
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303284604575582740394620482.html

======
cperciva
Considering that the AdMob acquisition was announced in early November 2009
and yesterday was the last business day in October, I'm guessing this is a
case of 'stick around as long as the acquisition deal requires and not a day
longer'.

Which makes me wonder, and I hope some of the local greybreads can elucidate
this point: In general, how common is it for acquired founders to leave ASAP,
and how many instead stick around for the long term?

~~~
jedc
That said, the acquisition only closed very recently. Within the last few
months if I remember correctly.

~~~
cperciva
In May according to techcrunch. But I'm guessing that the deal which closed
was one which was signed back in October 2009, and that the 1 year countdown
started when the deal was signed.

------
ary
What I'm _very_ curious to know is how Google employees feel about what the
culture there now is like. There have been a fair number of high profile exits
in the last year or so and a while a Facebook IPO is probably reason number
one there have to be at least a few more complementary reasons.

I've met a number of ex-Googler "suits" and have never been impressed by those
guys. They don't shy away from boasting about their time there and what they
supposedly added to the organization as a whole. The experiences have made me
wonder if the business types have started to sour the culture. Any current or
former employees care to weigh in?

Addendum: Let me add that I have nothing against business people as a whole. I
(anecdotally) find that large groups of technically competent people tend to
weed out assholes from their ranks somewhat more effectively than large groups
of strictly business/management people.

------
startingup
The trouble with the AdMob-like behavior is that acquirers pretty much know
founders would flip and go. No rational acquirer these days can expect
founders to stick around very long. It may happen - YouTube guys stuck around
- but the odds don't favor it.

Golden handcuffs and such only go so far, because if a person's mind is not
fully engaged, what's the point in him or her showing up?

This has the effect of lowering the price acquirers would want to pay. I have
seen this dynamic play out. When one of the companies I am involved with
acquired a small company (note that most such deals are never publicly
announced), they simply told the founders to stick around 3-6 months, hand
over the technology and go. There was not even a _plan_ to ask them to stick
around. Of course, the price paid reflected that. This is the flip-side of the
"talent acquisition" deals we read about - pure tech acquisitions, valued only
for the code and the jump-start it gives someone else.

------
vladd
Wave Chief leaves as well, for Facebook:
<http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/29/rasmussen-facebook-google/>

~~~
charlief
Kate Vale, YouTube Australia Chief, gone as well

[http://delimiter.com.au/2010/10/30/google-exodus-lars-
rasmus...](http://delimiter.com.au/2010/10/30/google-exodus-lars-rasmussen-
kate-vale-gone/)

------
askar_yu
"Executives previously have said it is close to being profitable, despite the
large costs associated with storing and delivering so much video content."

Youtube has yet to be profitable? wow.

~~~
narrator
I think the youtube acquisition was more about controlling the direction of
online video than anything else. Before Youtube, online video was a mishmash
of proprietary codecs. Proprietary online video was the only thing at that
time that Microsoft or some other big player could use to destroy the open web
platform.

------
Padura
So many experts leaving Google. Is that a bad or good sign?

~~~
pavs
Since I never worked for FB or google I can only make a guess. People who are
leaving for Facebook from Google (or any other company) are doing so not
because they think facebook has something better to offer than Google in terms
of working in interesting stuff and perhaps even offer better work environment
or salary; but because facebook is the best place to work before IPO.

I think this is an excellent way to weed out people who are interested in
working on interesting stuff and people who are just working for the money
(not that there is anything wrong with that).

Not that to say that there are no interesting stuff to work in facebook, but
there is no comparison to Google.

~~~
charlief
If I told you where I work, when I started working there, it doesn't make
sense that you'll be able to derive my motivations or my character. Of course
compensation is always a factor in choosing a place to work, but I am sure
each individual case is so different and so complex that holding them to a
_greed metric_ is a little heavy-handed.

It isn't even a question about character here because if these people were
concerned about money before everything else, many of the smartest Silicon
Valley people could have had a job on Wall Street a long time ago. On Wall
Street, almost 100% of the time you'll be very well off (remember how much GDP
goes through that street). Wall Street will take brains anytime. If not Wall
Street, FB IPO expectations haven't changed significantly in a year, these
people would have moved over ages ago if they wanted a big equity cut.

There is only so much liquidity to go around with 1700+ employees and a
marginally liquid market on secondmarket. For me, second market changes the
game a bit because the error in valuation is potentially a lot smaller (there
was a very good discussion on FB over here
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1719975>). Either way, I wonder the size
of the equity packages involved. Even if they are large, someone like Lars is
very well off and spent most of his whole life building things so I don't
think he is a _jump to FB for the IPO_ kind of guy. Choosing where to work,
when to work is a complex decision and not indicative of any character most of
the time.

------
neolefty
Notable that both YouTube founders _stayed with Google_ \-- they left YouTube
to, according to the article, work on other Google projects. That's pretty
impressive on Google's part; it implies that they've built enough of an
internal startup culture that these top-notch founders find it more attractive
than going outside the company.

