
The Undertakers of Silicon Valley (2018) - allenleein
https://logicmag.io/failure/the-undertakers-of-silicon-valley/
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H8crilA
I wish it had more details on the company liquidations. Like I'm curious -
what did the unfortunate Pets.com shareholders eventually receive? How long
did it take? Which assets were sold, which were just trashed? Any interesting
fights with shareholders/bondholders? Book values of startups (including long
running but still rather poor startups like Tesla or Uber) are usually very
low.

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cbm-vic-20
I was a 3dFX shareholder when their fortunes turned, and they were "acquired"
by nVidia. Or at least just their IP assets were. As a regular shareholder, I
got nothing- no payout, no nVidia shares. My modest investment became
worthless nearly overnight. Somebody made money on this deal- it wasn't me,
and it wasn't put up for shareholder vote.

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CalChris
Probably the stock liquidation preferences didn't extend to your class of
stock. Also debt.

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dehrmann
Right; debt holders get paid out before shareholders...which is only fair.
Debt covers things like rent and employee wages--owners of the company
_should_ get paid out last.

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CalChris
Agreed. Debt is senior to any stock but not all stock is equal; there’s
liquidation preferences and who is at the table. Employees usually get the
shaft even if founders technically hold common. Employees aren’t at the table.

The article mentions this. It’s a subtle point about prisoners dilemma. In an
acquisition, there is no sense of equity, just interest.

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SOLAR_FIELDS
Interesting article, however you can tell that the author was definitely
trying to up their word count. It is probably about 4-5x as long as it needs
to be.

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archy_
Yep. You can really tell how hard they're grasping at straws with stuff like
this:

>If a founder fails, tech discourse interprets it as a sign of young vigor. In
a country in which twenty-five-year-old white rapists are “still boys” and
black twelve year-olds on the playground “look like adults,” the question of
who gets to be a kid and who counts as a grown-up is clearly charged with
privilege.

Just have to shoehorn race in somehow, adding an entire paragraph to the
article that is nothing more than filler.

~~~
CalChris
The writer makes his point about privilege with a parallel and examples, even
if it's an uncomfortable point made in an uncomfortable way. Hardly filler. It
builds an argument for his conclusion about double standards.

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ggm
A university friend wound up working for insolvency accounting firms. He said
you need a heart of steel and a head of steel, and it costs. I didn't like him
as much before he told me this, as I did afterward because I think we need to
pay respect to the undertakers, they do a job nobody else is willing to do,
and treating them like pariahs or untouchables is bad.

That said, Asset stripping a viable company to get its value as a KPI is kind-
of a "thing" and I think we all suspect the shell-game of 'who is first in the
creditors list' plays out to somebody else's advantage. I don't trust
insolvency because I don't trust the compacts which puts some people at the
front of the queue for settlement.

In Australia, government guarantees on workers statutory entitlements is good.
But after that, its banks before everyone. Almost anyone I know, who engages
with an insolvency is in the 'you are unsecured, go away' camp. Thats a lot of
downstream hurt for small traders, self-employed, productive people.

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reeeeee
Why does it say that Pebble Tech is a failed company? I thought it was aquired
by Fitbit?

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ben1040
[https://investor.fitbit.com/press/press-releases/press-
relea...](https://investor.fitbit.com/press/press-releases/press-release-
details/2016/Fitbit-Inc-Acquires-Assets-from-Pebble/default.aspx)

Fitbit didn't acquire Pebble; they acquired some assets from Pebble.

The corporate entity Pebble still existed, with all the liabilities left on
the balance sheet, and someone had to wind it down.

