
ONO sells for $9.5 billion and nobody cares - pearjuice
http://english.martinvarsavsky.net/general/ono-sells-for-9-5-billion-and-nobody-cares.html
======
replicatorblog
This has very little to do with national moods/prejudices and much more to do
with boring/atypical industries vs. hot consumer ones. ONO got no attention
largely because it's "boring" to a mass audience. There are plenty of examples
of this domestically, e.g.

\+ Child focused ecommerce company Zulily filed a $2.6B IPO, but got very
little attention.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6740927](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6740927)

I'd also note that there are blinders even within the startup community. I've
submitted plenty of stories about under-the-radar startups that die on the
vine because the companies are more focused on execution that cultivating a PR
rep that would earn media and upvotes.

\+ Wayfair, a bootstrapped ecommerce company raised $165MM in its "Series A"
and barely got a notice here on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3625381](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3625381)

\+ Here's another example of HN blindness:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3625381](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3625381)

\+ Nearly a quarter of the top 20 projects on Kickstarter are board games—can
you remember the last story you read about one? A couple have raised more than
Oculus Rift or Formlabs, but get no attention because they're "boring," while
these hardware cos earn magazine covers and lavish praise.

\+ Mailchimp is easily a $100MM+ in revenue company that was bootstrapped, but
they're rarely profiled.

The reality is the tech news reported by most of the big names is just the
most "exciting" tip of the iceberg. There are plenty of worthy stories that
just won't generate page views and hence don't get the attention they
"deserve," if coverage was apportioned by success measured in dollars or reach
rather than pageviews.

~~~
omegant
I think that Martin is refering to the attention that the wasup adquisition
had here in Spain and how little is getting in the spanish media, a Spanish
start up that's selling for that amount.

~~~
taylorbuley
It's easy to blame media "blindness" and inattention -- here, apparently both
in Spain and on the wider Web -- but to me it just boils down to the economics
of attention. If the author is right and "nobody cares" then the lack of press
is pretty explainable.

In today's ad-driven world, journalists are tacitly rewarded (at the very
least) for Web traffic. As such, the coveted beats are the ones that drive
guaranteed interest -- Apple being the traffic gorilla when I was a staff
writer. The stuff closest to consumers (porcelain) on the whole drive more
interest than infrastructure (plumbing).

Starting out in the Valley I got beats like Seagate and storage (after getting
the assignment, another editor joked that it was "borage"). I remember envying
the consumer electronics writers for their traffic, but was always more of a
pluming guy myself.

------
mjburgess
Europeans arent as unreflectingly captialistic and "frontier"sy. Americans
have always seen success in business as an crowning achievement. Europeans
have traditionally found this kind of pre-occupation with monetary success
somewhat crass or trivial.

> Europeans don’t realize that if a company that went from nothing to
> connecting 7 million homes is not celebrated...

That's total BS. You dont need a culture of fanatical adoration of business
success for their to be successful businesses.

> if a company ... is not celebrated ... we will not get young Europeans on
> the right track

It really worrisome how these people have to go around reminding everyone how
amazing they are. I think our children will do just fine without being
propagandised by self-aggrandizing money-chasers.

~~~
melvinram
Bullshit. What is crass is the perspective that Americans are unreflectingly
capitalistic and pre-occupied with monetary success.

Most business owners I know started their business because they saw a need for
something and they wanted to deliver what was needed. Financial success is
important because it allows their organization to continue functioning but
it's hardly the top motivator for business owners I've spoken with.

I will concede that there are a fair percentage of businesses that are
unreflectingly capitalistic and pre-occupied with monetary success. However,
to paint an entire nation with a broad stroke is ignorance at it's worst. It
would be the same as saying "The Brits have terrible teeth" or "The French
smell." It may be true for a percentage of people but is no way to address a
body of people.

~~~
mjburgess
You have this thing called "The American Dream" and you have an entire
cultural history tied to self-motivation, entrepreneurship and "pushing the
frontier"...

Clearly every single american isnt subject to the same cultural pre-
occupations, that's absurd.

But there are only certain cultural phenomena possible in one place or
another. A right-wing party in the UK could not even begin to use any of the
ideas or rhetoric of the republican party - they'd be widespread revulsion. We
dont sing our national anthem in the UK, we dont "pleg" anything, we dont
consider our country "Exceptional" (hence _American_ Exceptionalism). There
hasnt been the suggestion that our prime minister is impotent for not
interfering in Ukraine, at least, nothing like the inferiority-complex about
Obama's lack of big-dickery.

The idea that the west is culturally homogenous is "Bullshit". As compared to
anywhere in europe, americans are vastly more market-oriented, mistrustful of
government, approving of business success, etc.

It is simply the case, insofar as I can see, that "business" isnt really a
dream of any kind in europe. People dont grow up wanting to run/own/be in
business in anyway, we dont really have an "explorer"/inventor dreams either.

A considerable amount has been written by the european experience of america
and an almost ubquitious theme in the accounts is "the feeling of unlimited
possibility", an ostentatiousness and pre-occupation with wealth, etc.

~~~
melvinram
"The American Dream", self-motivation, entrepreneurship and "pushing the
frontier" are all good things IMHO.

However, they aren't the same as "unreflectingly capitalistic" and "pre-
occupied with monetary success".

I'm not going to address the rest of your America bashing because the response
requires a nuanced answer that I don't have the time to write today. I'll
leave that to others.

~~~
mjburgess
> However, they aren't the same as "unreflectingly capitalistic" and "pre-
> occupied with monetary success".

They have become inextricably linked. Maybe early in the 19th C. you'd be
right. After the rise of american industry and maufacture and its
corresponding propaganda (edison, etc.) AND after the cold war, "capitalism",
"democracy", "patriotism" all became intertwined. Such that today The American
Dream is almost purely capitalist and pragmatic.

The American Dream has, to my eyes, for a long time been directed towards
individuals - it is _their_ dream. A person achieves their dream. Once,
perhaps, The American Dream was a dream for American _s_ \- a common
enterprise, with common goals, something achieved for everyone or no one, etc.

The author of this article did not explain why ONO was part of a common
enterpise, which its activity was making all our lives better and helping us
achieve our ideals. He said,

"built originally by Eugenio Galdon and mostly by my friend Richard Alden
between 2001 and 2011, is in the process of being sold to Vodafone for around
$9.5bn, and nobody cares."

If that's doesnt read hollow and pathetic to you I dont know what could. It's
complete mythologising of two people "building" a company, it's display of
hurt feeling over the fact that $10bn doesnt impress people enough, its utter
pre-occupation with self-aggrandizement and money.

The rhetoric in this article is almost suffocating its message and very few
can tell - because this rhetoric has become the language in which we phrase
our dreams today.

~~~
jessedhillon
The extent to which you have littered your own biases throughout this thread,
and then expected everyone to regard them as the true interpretation, is
absurd and childish.

 _If that 's doesnt read hollow and pathetic to you I dont know what could.
It's complete mythologising of two people "building" a company, it's display
of hurt feeling over the fact that $10bn doesnt impress people enough, its
utter pre-occupation with self-aggrandizement and money._

For example, this. I'm amazed you can't find one positive interpretation to
agree with. The $10bn price tag is a reflection of the company's commercial
success -- a reflection of the hard work, smart decisions, luck, timing and
scale involved in that success. To an American it's obvious that two people
didn't personally build the company, but it's also respectable that they
undertook a massive risk to create opportunities for others to join in their
effort and partake in the rewards.

The fact that you can only arrive at an extremely cynical interpretation
really says more about you, and goes a long way to confirm the assertion of
the article.

~~~
mjburgess
We'll I've commented three times thus far to direct replies.. I wouldnt say
that was "littering".

> To an American it's obvious that two people didn't personally build the
> company

Yes, but it's also obvious who gets the credit (, and who doesnt).

> I'm amazed you can't find one positive interpretation to agree with

Sorry I dont find the acquistion of wealth anything to celebrate in itself and
that's the point of the article.. so no, obviously i dont think there's a
positive interpretation here and it isnt "cynicsm": it's reading it without
buying into its assumptions.

> But we should not blame Americans for this. Americans do the right thing,
> they recognize and celebrate success. The blame is exclusively with
> Europeans who are still uncomfortable and envious with big exits

Yes Americans do the right thing and "celebrate success", they try not to tax
"job creators" and make sure "hard working risk takers" get the "credit they
deserve". Ideological, all of it.

------
spindritf
If you primarily rely on sources of information in English (of which I'm
guilty, too) then obviously you will be mostly getting information from the
Anglosphere dominated by the US because it's, oh you know, richest and most
powerful country in the history of the world.

This is not some "Americans cover their successes" thing. It's that they
matter more. There is an underlying economic reality in which we are lagging
far behind them. Not Africa-far but still far.

In a picture [http://cdn.static-
economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecac...](http://cdn.static-
economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/290-width/images/print-
edition/20120728_FBC674.png) from
[http://www.economist.com/node/21559618](http://www.economist.com/node/21559618)

~~~
genofon
" richest and most powerful country in the history of the world..."

not even close

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pre-
modern_great_powers](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pre-
modern_great_powers)

~~~
spindritf
Does any of those countries come close to the GDP of, say, Alabama ($160bn)?
Sure, comparing the value of organic wine form Rome to a car from Detroit is
not straight-forward but technological progress and compound interest
generally ensure that powers of today absolutely dwarf those of even a hundred
years ago, not to mention a thousand years ago, or two.

The ancient empires had troubles feeding their populations at times. Today,
_most_ Americans are overweight.

~~~
vacri
The gross world product is about 72 trillion dollars. Alabama's share of that
is 0.2%. In order to 'come close to Alabama', a historical power would have to
be close to 0.2% of the world's GDP at the time. And I don't think any of the
ones in that list went that low.

~~~
spindritf
0,2% of the world's GDP in 2012 is a good measure for a comparison of Alabama
to _other modern countries_ in 2012, not a comparison of Alamaba 2012 to Rome
12 AD.

That's like saying that the last person on Forbes 500 is not really rich
because they barely have 0.05% ($3 billion / $6 trillion) of the group's net
worth.

~~~
vacri
Wealth is a relative measure, not an absolute one.

"That's like saying that the last person (blah)"

No, because relative to other people, they have more stuff. The proportion
they have of the group's net worth is significant greater than almost all
other members, who have generally have five or more orders of magnitude less
wealth (0.0000005% and less).

The reason why you're having trouble converting from countries to individuals
is because there's currently only 200 countries, but 7 billion individuals.
That's why the individual's percentage looks lower.

Also, your comparison makes absolutely no allowance for inflation. GDP rises
for everyone over time simply due to inflation. Your shekel could purchase
more in the time of Herod than it could in the time of Netanyahu. Zimbabwe's
GDP went through the roof in recent years in their own dollars; but it didn't
as a comparison to the rest of the world's output.

------
onion2k
A couple of weeks ago Actavis bought Forest Labs for $25b. A few days earlier
Comcast bought Time Warner Cable for $42.5b. And before that Beam offered $16b
for Suntory.

Huge deals that affect entire markets (and industries) happen all the time,
but unless you follow that specific market you don't get to hear about them.
The fact is ONO is a mobile operator in a small local market (from a global
industry reference frame), and wholly outside of the tech-news-but-really-
only-"startups"-and-only-SaaS-startups-at-that microscope that most of the
tech press spend time looking through.

------
mmahemoff
No-one cares primarily because it's not a consumer product. If Pinterest was
Spanish and sold for $9.5B, you'd know about it.

See also:
[http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/03/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...](http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/03/zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz/)

~~~
pippy
Also from the article:

    
    
        Google buys Spanish Ono for $9.5bn to start Google Fiber throughout Europe
    

Vodafone won't be rolling out ultra fast fiber networks. They'll be putting
everything through a cost-benefit exercise to maximise profits. Essentially
just a fish being eaten by a bigger fish.

------
ig1
The mainstream don't care about telco markets and it's not major news in telco
terms. A 10bn acquisition is a third tier telco M&A deal.

Think about it this way in 2012 "mobile networks revenues were larger than all
revenue combined from mobile phone sales, PCs, online ads, books, recorded
music, watches, Apple, Amazon, Google & Facebook."

------
samuel
ONO really was an startup? I don't think that any startup, in the HN
sense(garage startup), has the financial strength to become overnight a cable
company.

Anyway, I haven't heard about this "guy", Eugenio Galdon, and it seems that he
was the chief advisor of Calvo Sotelo, former president of Spain.

So, in my opinion, this is hardly news. This is a typical story of spanish
success, where a "well connected" person, with the financial help of big
investors, takes advantage of regulatory and (foreign) technological changes.

Panoramio, idealista... even Inditex are real spanish startups, much better
examples of entrepeneurship.

------
mbesto
Ugh. Let's talk about media.

Commercially speaking, media has one goal - procuring eyeballs. Just because
eyeballs aren't fixated on a particular story doesn't make it sad, it just
means it's not a compelling story.

So why is WhatsApp a compelling story?

1\. Broke conventions - company only had 55 employees and valued at $19b. This
isn't normal for us. A telecommunication company selling for $9.5b makes
sense.

2\. Story of triumph - the founder of WhatsApp was "from a small village in
Ukraine". You can't get any more American than this my friends.

You see, America is quite possibly the greatest marketing engine in the world.
This is what separates itself from the rest of the world. We are engrained
story tellers, not because of some magical gene inherited, but rather because
we know good stories sell well.

------
danielsiders
People in general don't care about telco acquisitions unless there's a major
strategic consequence. The example the author gives “Google buys Spanish Ono
for $9.5bn to start Google Fiber throughout Europe” would have huge
consequences for everyone from consumers to device manufacturers to content
providers throughout Europe. Normal telco consolidation is rarely anything
other than the slow march of monopoly.

A 16 year old cable company is barely a startup, and highly unrelatable to the
startup community at large. The same story about a US company wouldn't get
coverage here unless there was a major strategic element. Kudos to the
founders and funders, but it's not a particularly inspirational story for
other entrepreneurs. The kinds of companies that get the most coverage here
are very young and generally have a global reach. A regional company (which
most telcos are) in say New England wouldn't get much coverage in the pacific
northwest. This isn't a regional or even a cultural issue, just a significance
issue.

------
RivieraKid
At the core of the problem is that the European market is not homogenous, so
building a big company is way harder.

* There's a significant overhead in expanding across borders because of different laws, language, culture, etc. That could even mean having to hire lawyers and business developers for every country.

* The pool of potential employees is smaller. Perhaps there's someone that would be a perfect fit for your startup, but he lives in a neigbouring country, so he's less likely to apply / want the job.

* For the above reasons, the investments are way lower, because startups have lower probability of becoming big.

Do you think it's possible to fix or mitigate this problem? What can the EU do
to make operating across borders as easy as possible?

------
sek
And E-Plus the third biggest German carrier gets sold to Telefonica for $11.8
billion. Did anybody hear about that?

Telcos wanna deny it but it's close to a commodity. This is mostly money
shifting around. When was the last time they introduced a game changer? Google
Fiber is something else, it's simply 50 times faster than the average Internet
connection.

~~~
lclarkmichalek
I mean, most people around here would prefer telecos to just be dumb pipes,
with the most want innovation being faster speeds. Regardless, some
developments I can remember recently:

\- 4G roll outs \- Essentially free SMS (in the UK at least) \- Psudo-phone
leasing ([http://www.vodafone.co.uk/shop/pay-monthly/vodafone-red-
hot/...](http://www.vodafone.co.uk/shop/pay-monthly/vodafone-red-
hot/index.htm)) \- "Home Boosters" (i.e.
[http://shop.vodafone.co.uk/shop/mobile-accessories/sure-
sign...](http://shop.vodafone.co.uk/shop/mobile-accessories/sure-signal)) \-
Stuff like WiFi on the underground
([http://www.vodafone.co.uk/shop/internet/wi-
fi/index.htm](http://www.vodafone.co.uk/shop/internet/wi-fi/index.htm))

Sure, nothing that changes their core value proposition, but plenty of
products that indicate a willingness to "innovate". Things like the home
boosters stand out particularly to me; the vast majority of their customers
will never need such a device, but for those who do, it will be invaluable.

~~~
justincormack
Unencrypted WiFi on the Underground is a typical telco poorly executed
"innovation". They actually promised mobile coverage originally.

------
RBerenguel
I'm Spanish, more or less watch the Spanish media (around 3-4 times per week
during lunchtime, usually I don't check most news) and I wasn't aware. So not
even our media cares.

~~~
muyuu
I understand it should be bigger news, but I don't understand why should
anyone be celebrating. Other than the ones who are making a killing out of
this deal, of course.

The Spanish telecom market is not a competitive market, it's enormously rigged
and regulated. Success in this market doesn't come from innovation or better
business practices, but as a result from politics and power struggles. This is
probably true for any other telecom market nowadays.

Also, who in his right mind would consider ONO a startup these days?

~~~
RBerenguel
Me neither. If I had shares in Vodafone or ONO, maybe I'd celebrate.

ONO a startup? Ha! I think I've known about ONO before I even got a modem.

------
leugim
That is really true. Facebook buys Instagram for 1B$ and everyone know. Google
buys Nest and everyone start to discuss about "Internet of things", but no one
cares about ONO.

~~~
voyou
Facebook's purchase of Instagram was big news because a lot of people thought
of Instagram as an app that lets people post cheesy filtered selfies, and it
seemed surprising that that was worth a billion dollars. Google buying Nest
has a somewhat similar hook, in the sense that you can tell a story around
"WTF is this company doing and why do Google think it's worth so much."
Vodafone buying ONO is one telecommunications company buying another
telecommunications company; it's not obvious why it would be interesting to
anyone outside of the telecommunications industry.

------
AznHisoka
Maybe this attitude of nobody cares is more healthy.

Versus "look at that startup that got acquired! Look at his successful their
founder is! And look at all the billions they have that YOU DON'T".

To me, THAT is more depressing.

------
luka-birsa
Similar to what the US is doing in terms of mobile market, thinking that they
are somehow representative or "advanced".

We get millions of headlines for Apple launching video chat in the US market
while they had that in EU 5 and in JP 7 years back.

At the risk of sounding overly condecending, if there is something that "ze
Americans" do great is selling their supremacy (ie. we are the best).

BTW: Thats a good thing as they tend to fake it till they make it.

------
bjornsing
Well the big difference between those two stories (Google buys ONO and
Vodafone buys ONO) is that one would imply change (for the consumer - for
founders both is of course a big change) and the other doesn't. Who cares if
the corporate overlord at ONO is called Richard Alden (ONO "founder" in
Varsavsky's eyes) or Vittorio Colao (Vodafone CEO)?

~~~
acchow
You nailed it. Vodafone acquiring ONO is just changing uniforms.

------
blazespin
"built ... mostly by my friend Richard Alden", wait what? The thousands of
other employees don't count?

~~~
mjburgess
As I said, self-aggrandizing. People read this trumped-up BS every day in
silicon valley and have started to believe it.

------
flocial
I wonder what is the point of caring? If I was a founder a multi-billion exit
under the radar sounds like a dream come true.

Celebrating success as the author puts it is merely a symptom of meritocracy
and individual responsibility. Of course, it comes with its own issues (less
of a social safety net and income disparity).

------
btomar
I won't call an MSO/Cable company news as boring. Why the American industry
creates so much attention is due to the dominance of American Technology
Sector and American media firms. The MSO sector has lot of potential for
innovation with the rising sectors such as Home Automation, Gigabit fiber or
to sum it up (Internet of Things). When it comes to technology, even Nokia the
most respected handset brand of the pre-smartphone age, was acquired by
Microsoft, an American firm. Unless Europe gets more flexible with its tech
industry (like encouraging Kickstarter/Ycombinator type firms) they would
never gather the focus like the US.

------
danieltillett
I am wondering if the company name did not sound like a mistake in english if
the news would have been be bigger - congratulations to them though.

------
yason
If I'm not mistaken ONO wasn't a public company so I'm wondering why should
basically anyone care except the parties involved?

Reading about big acquisitions of non-public companies (or public companies
whose shares you don't own yourself) can sometimes be nice entertainment, but
I fail to see the significance of the lack of news coverage as assumed by the
OP.

------
omegote
I've been a ONO customer for more than ten years now. Honestly their internet
service is the best around. Vodafone buying Ono isn't something for us
customers to celebrate, because I'm sure the service will get worse. Mark my
words.

------
johnchristopher
This article is just part of the propaganda for the coming european elections.

Spain has much bigger worries than the plebe not caring about telcos tycoons
buying each other's companies for such astronomical amounts of money.

------
pervycreeper
Won't someone think of those poor non-english billionaires?

------
Ryel
I lost interest at "cable company"

------
fiatjaf
Because maybe it worths $9.5 billion and infrastructure and expected profits,
while WhatsApp is worth nothing.

------
NAFV_P
Regarding the discussions of American dominance / influence / power:

Fortran, LISP, COBOL, PL/I, C, VB, Java.

------
stretchwithme
Why should people care if people care about a business changing hands?

------
syntheticlife
Nice complaint-brag

------
interstitial
What color shall the bike shed be?

