
Pinterest Acquires Hackermeter (YC S13) - minimaxir
http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/11/pinterest-acquires-hackermeter-right-out-of-the-gate-will-shut-it-down/
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jtbigwoo
They don't appear to have much of a product or much business. Let's call it
what it is: a signing bonus, not an acquisition.

Perhaps I should use this approach the next time I apply for a job. "You're
going to have to acquire my side project in order to get me to start working
here."

Maybe I could make techcrunch.

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pg
What a mean-spirited thing to say, and to upvote. It makes me sad to see this
kind of snark as the top comment on HN threads.

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foobarqux
Is the problem with the comment the tone or the content?

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jfoster
I'm guessing it's more the tone, but probably also the content a little.
Sometimes it doesn't hurt to leave some things unsaid even if there could be
some truth to them.

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foobarqux
It hurts because it distorts people's perceptions which impairs their
judgement: If you never talk about things going sideways then people
underestimate how often it happens which may cause them to pursue something
that they wouldn't otherwise.

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derefr
Does anyone else feel that buying out Hackermeter this early on is almost
somehow _polite_ of Pinterest, relative to the behavior of other bigcorps that
practice acquihiring?

Most companies will only acquihire once a startup is pretty mature, and has
thousands/millions of people relying on its service--even though it would be
equally easy to judge whatever attributes of the startup's product/service
signals "good team, do buy out" from much earlier on in its lifecycle. I had
never even heard of Hackermeter, but on reading the pitch in the article, and
seeing a bit of the product, it's immediately obvious what kind of
tech/UX/design/product-sense expertise would be required to produce it, and
what I could do if I could put the same talent behind my own venture.

Maybe this _should_ be the start of something. I'm picturing a PR-wire-like
service for startups to post their MVPs, which bigcorps can subscribe to, and
offer to buy out the talent that catches their eye before the service is even
out of closed beta. (In fact, just to go a bit crazy: imagine if the use of
this service became commonplace. Acquihiring a startup _with_ traction might
be considered "bad business!")

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minimaxir
I believe Exitround is doing something along those lines.

[http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/09/exitround-first-
exit/](http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/09/exitround-first-exit/)

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ergest
Entrepreneurs are the new labor
[http://www.forbes.com/sites/venkateshrao/2012/09/03/entrepre...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/venkateshrao/2012/09/03/entrepreneurs-
are-the-new-labor-part-i/)

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pvdm
Sorry, I could not make it through all that dense verbiage. Quick summary
please ?

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cml
It has been a while since I read that series of articles, but the gist of it
was:

-The author predicts that the business side of entrepreneurship will become increasingly commoditized, with programs like YC supplanting business school as the expected qualification for executives. The author parallels the unique skills required by railroad and steel entrepreneurs (access to funding networks, an ability to act on incomplete and indistinct market data and so on) with those of today's tech entrepreneurs and then observes how those skills became less valuable as the railroad and steel markets matured and consolidated to the point where the risk-taking entrepreneurs were no longer necessary and were replaced by dry MBA-types.

-The author predicts that the tech side will evolve into something like the guild system used by artisans prior to the industrial revolution, since engineers are still the gatekeepers to technology.

-Finally, the author predicts that both of these groups will become increasingly beholden to finance-types, albeit with the engineers having quite a lot more leverage if they can manage to establish some kind of collective bargaining platform (i.e. a guild). By nature of being individually indistinct and for the most part interchangeable in terms of skills as tech markets become less risky, business-oriented entrepreneurs are therefore the new labor in the way that manufacturing jobs were the old labor.

By the way, I thought it was a long but pretty fantastic read and would highly
recommend it if you can find a few hours of free time.

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pvdm
Thanks. Sounds like another long, but more accessible read (Manna):
[http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm](http://www.marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)

Whole swath of middle management can be replaced with a little bit of
automation and ML.

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nwenzel
Congrats! Pinterest is a great place filled with great people.

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aelaguiz
Congrats guys! Pinterest is a great company you'll be happy there.

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TheMakeA
I seem to recall them raising money on Wefunder. In fact, a number of S13
companies appear to be[1]. Unfortunately, it looks like most of the companies
are having trouble raising even small sums of money.

I wonder if some investors might take the $ currently raised as a proxy for
interest. Investors already follow a herd mentality. I wonder if this open +
crowdfunding model might actually make it even harder to raise money.

[1] [https://ycombinator.wefunder.com/](https://ycombinator.wefunder.com/)

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lahwf
why is this here? a couple engineers get hired from a startup they couldn't
make money.

