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."
cmon man... the last jibe about Techcrunch was a bit was a bit snarky, but this post speaks the truth. Product shut down, founders joining as engineers. is there anything mean spirited about stating the obvious?
Sure there is. Imagine telling a child "your drawings are very clumsy; they don't look at all like what they're drawings of," or telling a very old person "you're probably going to die soon."
Mean-spirited comments are rarely completely false. They're mostly nasty ways to use (usually partial) truths.
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.
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.
As went Reddit, so goes Hacker News (albeit far more slowly). With some sadness, I feel that it is just about time for the next refuge for hackers to spring up out of nowhere and captivate us. Even Hacker News, it seems, can't escape becoming too big.
Don't you know that when you ask for civility you're a tone troll and that everything you're asking for can be dismissed because the words "tone troll" are a magical incantation against which no defense can be mounted?
Agreed. I wonder how the folks YC feels about this. Must be pretty embarrassing that an alum has so little confidence in their product that they'll bite at the first acquisition offer that comes around. They probably could have saved everyone the trouble by applying to Pinterest directly.
But, like you said, they probably wouldn't have gotten the signing bonus.
One concrete consequence is that Y Combinator funding lets you sell early, if you want to. It can sometimes make sense to sell yourself when you're small for a few million, rather than take more funding and roll the dice again. Google likes to do early-stage acquisitions, and we expect them to become increasingly common as other companies learn what Google has.
If you take a large amount of money from an investor, you usually give up this option. But we realize (having been there) that an early offer from an acquirer can be very tempting for a group of young hackers. So if you want to sell early, that's ok. We'd make more if you went for an IPO, but we're not going to force anyone to do anything they don't want to.
>> It can sometimes make sense to sell yourself when you're small for a few million, rather than take more funding and roll the dice again.
If they sold hackermeter for "a few million" I'm giving up on capitalism. It was good while it lasted.
Snark aside, I assume they didn't get a few million because they didn't disclose the amount. It would have to be an amount that neither side wanted to brag about.
You mean one that neither side sees any benefit to bragging about. Most mature people realize there is about zero personal benefit to letting folks know that you now have a few million in the bank. Similarly, most acquirers realize there is about zero corporate benefit to letting folks know that you just paid a few million for a 2-month old startup. So it is to both sides' advantage to keep the terms of the deal secret.
Don't assume that just because you don't know about something, it's inconsequential.
"Must be pretty embarrassing that an alum has so little confidence in their product that they'll bite at the first acquisition offer that comes around. They probably could have saved everyone the trouble by applying to Pinterest directly."
When you're funding dozens of startups a year, this kind of thing is going to happen once in a while. It's an expected outcome. I'm glad the founders had an exit that makes them happy.
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.