
If Microsoft made an offer to buy your startup would you sell? - jkush

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cwilbur
Microsoft's money is as green as any other money I'm likely to be offered for
the software; my decision would depend on other things like the amount they
were offering and the terms of the deal.

For instance, "must move to Redmond," "must sign a non-compete contract," and
"must be developed in Microsoft proprietary languages and for Microsoft
proprietary platforms" would all be deal-killers.

My goal here is not to be rich, necessarily, but to create the kind of company
I want to work for and make it profitable enough that I don't need to work for
any other company. If any buyer, even Microsoft, offered the sort of
environment I wanted to work in, plus enough money that I could walk away and
not need to work another corporate IT job again if the environment changed,
I'd sell.

And some of this is predicated on the experience of a good friend of mine,
whose team mostly bootstrapped a very profitable company, then sold it to
their largest corporate customer; suddenly they were getting guaranteed
salaries, and they got to watch their project earn tens of millions in
revenue, but the working environment was politically toxic and the company
(now a wholly-owned subsidiary) was the football in constant turf wars, and
(in retrospect, especially after seeing the first two years' income from the
project) the price they asked was about 1/10 of what it should have been.

I can't alter the turf wars and political toxicity in certain corporations,
but I can make sure I ask a price for my company that means I can stand up and
walk away with no financial worries if they develop.

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blader
Realistically, of course I would!

Theoretically, it would depend on the terms, the price, and competing offers.
If in the unlikely event that Google and Microsoft made competing offers, both
requiring substantial vesting terms (2+ years), then Microsoft would have to
offer maybe 15-30% more for it to make sense.

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mattjaynes
Actually, a better question would be:

Would you rather sell your soul to the devil or to this guy?

<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6843390913661737077>

Seriously, I have a hard time deciding that one ;)

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jkush
Haha. No matter how many times I see that video it kills me. Thanks for the
laugh, I needed it.

Hahaha.

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mattjaynes
Thanks ;) Good luck w/ your app!

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jkush
Same to you sir!

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jkush
I think how you answer this question says a lot. I'm not sure how I would
answer this question myself.

Would you refuse to sell on principle? Or because as Paul says, Microsoft is
dead?

Or do you just take the money, principles be damned?

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whacked_new
Just to split hairs here, is there a difference between principles damned at
$1, and principles damned at $1e7?

Also, Microsoft might be "dead" but they still provide value to their
customers, whatever it is. While Vista might be way overhyped and/or
overpriced, it can still do useful things. If your product reaches more
customers and results in significant benefits for them, why not leverage MS's
position? The principle then, is not about money. It's about your product's
purpose. Hotmail for example.

~~~
jkush
I agree - it's just that I've met too many people who live by principle and
not by the situation.

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Mistone
lets dream for a minute - All things even, I would prefer Microsoft over
Yahoo, but likely go with Google over both. Even better would be a slightly
smaller, more focused player like SalesForce.com. It seems that Yahoo has a
tendency to sap a startup of all it's mojo, while Google is fairly effective
at buying a feature/product and quickly integrating it into their suite.

Microsoft has done well with some, and dropped the ball on others, but the
embedded reach and business focus would be a huge value add to our business.

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ivan
If Microsoft would ... there will be many more who would maybe google or yahoo
:) So I would not and not because of PG article.

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dawie
Business is Business. I would sell to anyone that made a decent offer and walk
away from anyone that does't!

