
Vizify acquired by Yahoo - dswiese
https://www.vizify.com/yahoo#transition
======
untog
Sad. Another company failing and shutting down with its employees going to
work at Yahoo.

Sorry, I mean they got acqui-hired.

EDIT: There are other comments saying that people are being unnecessarily
negative. Maybe so. But this is a company with customers that is shutting down
without a single apology to people that depend on their service. Overall, the
post just feels like doublespeak, talking about "your transition" (to what?),
and:

 _" we realized we’d found a partner who shared our passion for user
experience, design, and visualizing information."_

...which is why they've told us to shut down all the work we've been doing for
the last few years and start something different!

~~~
nedwin
Are you a customer of Vizify?

~~~
shakeel_mohamed
I am, and I'm also sad - just waiting for Vizify to have massive security
flaws now.

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jchonphoenix
There's a surprising number of negative comments here. Have any of you ever
started a company and been involved in an acquisition process from the front
lines?

If not, I'd suggest being a little more careful with your wording. Your
statements come across as worse than naive--they come across as petty, with a
tinge of idiocy. I'd just make sure I was more informed about these
decisions/processes before making commentary on them.

~~~
droob
They're closing. It's nice for them, but bad for users.

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bredren
Our company is in the Portland Seed Fund portfolio also. We know Todd and his
team and they are good people. They worked incredibly hard at building up
Vizify.

While it may be a bummer for users, I hope this is a positive step for the
team and congratulate them on their effort!

EDIT: It is worth mentioning that Vizify raised in the valley, but ran the
company out of Portland. Only a few consumer internet companies have done this
so far, but in each case it has brought a lot to the city by helping build out
the startup ecosystem up there.

It is way different running a consumer internet startup in Portland from the
valley. We couldn't do it--we moved down to CA.

More info and sentiment from Rick Turoczy, who is close to the Portland tribe:
[http://siliconflorist.com/2014/03/05/visualize-exit-
portland...](http://siliconflorist.com/2014/03/05/visualize-exit-portlands-
vizify-acquired-yahoo/)

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primitivesuave
The negativity around acqui-hires is pretty ridiculous. Every single tech
company pays for the ability to hire smart people, and the basis of the hiring
process is centered around the quality of a candidate's resume. In this case,
there is a group of smart people (Vizify) who have a very real accomplishment
(Vizify), which trumps a fact-laden piece of paper any day.

~~~
finnh
Ratio of "acquihire haters" to "haters who would turn down a well-priced
acquisition offer on that basis" = ERROR DIV0

Funnily enough, I've actually walked from an acquisition before. But for a
very different reason: BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T OFFER ENOUGH MONEY. That's it. Full
stop. I am running a business, after all.

~~~
jtfrench
>> "Ratio of "acquihire haters" to "haters who would turn down a well-priced
acquisition offer on that basis" = ERROR DIV0"

You sir/ma'am, are hilarious.

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yawgmoth
There are only a handful of comments in this thread and they're already
seething with vitriol. Can anyone give context? Or is this just general
"Yahoo, blech," sentiment?

~~~
callahad
There's just general antipathy around acqui-hires. The team gets a nice
payday, but existing customers get burned.

I suspect that poisons the well for other startups as those customers become
more cautious. I'm also generally uncomfortable with concentrating innovation
within a small set of megacorps.

~~~
stephen
> The team gets a nice payday

Part of my naive negative reaction to acqui-hires is that the
investors/founders get more of a payday (not VC-dream 100x but I assume more
than 1x) than the team really does (maybe some retention bonuses, minor
bonuses from vested stock, etc.).

This is basically not rewarding the investors for backing a great business
idea, or the founders for great execution, but for being great recruiters.

E.g. "yay, I'm/the team are awesome at my/our jobs, so my founders/investors
get a huge 'referral bonus'...and I get to go work at Yahoo..."

(Granted, if the acquirer only wants the founders anyway, and the rest of the
engineering team is more of a tangential bonus, I guess it makes sense.
Perhaps this is usually the case anyway? Not sure.)

~~~
smm2000
My friend was recently ac qr - hired and he definitely did not see big payday.
It was slightly better offer than what he would have got as a regular new hire
but only slightly. Value of his options (after working for 3 years) was less
than 10k.

~~~
stephen
Ouch.

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austinhutch
I've had a Vizify profile for a while and have been underwhelmed with the
product. I'd like to hear from someone who really likes it and/or gets value
from it.

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noelwelsh
A great result for Todd and team! Having worked with the people at Vizify I
know they'll do some great stuff at Yahoo!

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lloyddobbler
I don't know any details of the transaction - but I'm very excited to see
Yahoo picking up this team and their social data visualization tech. Yahoo
seems to be testing its boundaries as a content provider in a lot of good
ways.

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emilsundberg
Sad to hear that their company and product failed. Did anyone use their paid
service?

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AznHisoka
I knew the name sounded familiar, and then I realized why. I've been to these
sites listed in twitter profile bios and they all looked so
spammy/useless/devoid of content when I visited them.

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justinelof
This is a great group of guys, congrats to the team. Startups a hard, very
hard. They made a great product and worked on what they love, if they get to
continue to work on what they love at Yahoo, more power to them. I just hope
they are able to keep their scrappy and inquisitive style.

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cubes
Congratulations Todd and team!

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yeukhon
What's the use of this? I would imagine Facebook's end of year review was a
clone of Vizify's idea? Anyhow, how was this idea be profitable for this
startup to stay alive? I have never heard of it to be honest. To me this looks
like [http://osrc.dfm.io/](http://osrc.dfm.io/) and FB's end-of-year review

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mase
Fuck the haters. Congrats to the team!

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pibby_
As a Vizify user, I'm saddened that they will be shutting down. I really
enjoyed their service and it served as a great "bio" website.

Pleased for the designers and developers, though, they had great success, IMO,
and I hope they will make their mark at Yahoo.

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bertil
I don’t understand: one comment (politely) regrets their closing their
service; half are encouraging and short; therefore, why is the other half of
the comments about how people are so negative about the whole thing?

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mrmch
Congrats to Todd and the team; this is a positive outcome.

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djyaz1200
Congrats! Go PDX!

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seshakiran
Congratulations!

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brianr
Congrats to the Vizify team!

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hydralist
"Since last summer, we’ve been engaged in a conversation with some of the
incredible folks at Yahoo about the ways this more visual approach to data can
inspire and entertain. As our conversations progressed, we realized we’d found
a partner who shared our passion for user experience, design, and visualizing
information."

This shit makes me cringe, such bullshit. They offered the right price, we
wanted money. That is all

~~~
snorkel
Congratulations on being acqui-hired by Yahoo! We have automated our acqui-
hire process so please complete the following steps and then push the submit
button.

1\. Shutdown your service.

2\. In the provided announcement template, you must replace [NAME OF COMPANY]
with your company name, and after the words "shares our passion for" enter a
[SHORT DESCRIPTION OF YOUR SERVICE]

3\. Replace your current home page with the completed announcement template

4\. Report to Yahoo! headquarters on 9:00AM Monday for Aqui-hire Orientation.
Please refer to your acquisition confirmation id number [9342645] at the
registration desk. Bring a photo id and recent immunization records.

~~~
hydralist
hahah, well done sir

