

Google buys Meebo - patrickaljord
http://techcrunch.com/2012/06/04/confirmed-google-is-buying-meebo-the-startup-that-turned-chat-into-a-business/

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pbreit
Wow, I thought Meebo was on track for much more than a $100 million buyout. It
has raised $70 million and apparently has a very large, active user base after
all. I wonder what happened?

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mrchess
Strategic exit I'm guessing. I think they have been struggling to find a core
product for a while now. The meebo bar was essentially a pivot after
popularity of meebo messenger started to decline.

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ChuckMcM
That seems likely. I doubt there was any employee participation on this exit.
Google has a pretty good track record of giving 'RSU's[1] to the key employees
in an acquisition which can make it worthwhile.

[1] RSU - Restricted Stock Unit. Unlike a stock 'option' where there is a
price per share which is set at the current market price and then is only
valuable if the stock goes 'up', an RSU a convertible instrument that has a
nominal face value of 1.0 share of Google Stock. However it has attached to it
a scaling factor which is generally tied to performance. The scaling factor
can go to 0 if performance is poor or as high as 3 if performance is stellar
generally. This would be similar to an 'earnout' although its more about how
the employee does at the company rather than how the acquired assets perform.

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heretohelp
Meebo was about to lose most of their remaining (they'd already lost a few)
key employees to better companies anyway. A Google buyout with incentives to
keep the employees around was really the only way this was going to end well.

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jcampbell1
I hope the founders have cached something out of this, or are getting an earn
out. When you raise $70, and sell for $100, the founders shares are worthless.

