For $300 those backers got the promise of an awesome VR headset. I don't see why they should get equity for free on top of that.
It would be nice if kickstarter campaigns could add equity as and option in the reward tiers, but it's not like these people gave their money for nothing in return.
I think this would be the idea. If there was even an option for equity, the entire sentiment of a quick flip changes. It becomes less about the company exploiting you and more about you not having enough faith to buy a few shares in addition to the prototype.
People right now currently feel akin to a benefactor who put a kid through college only to have the kid turn their back on them down the road once they're successful.
And that is a stupid way to feel. Using your kid analogy, they didn't turn their backs on anyone, they took a better paying gig so that they can do more stuff for you. So that they can get you a quicker ROI by having more assets at their disposal, by being legitimized.
I don't understand any of your reactions to this. They took money, and so what? For a site that is dedicated to the entrepreneurial spirit, making it big, and "disrupting industries" you sure could have fooled me.
Most of the biggest tech companies we respect today started with a lot of potential, a lot of risk, and offers for early exits that would have made the founders rich. The founders believed enough in themselves and their vision to tell these people to go fuck themselves, they were going to go their own way. The reason people react negatively to this is because they see huge potential in Oculus and don't feel Facebook has the incentives to execute on VR the way Oculus was poised to, especially now that the founders/execs effectively have lost their ability to control the company (PR statements notwithstanding.)
Honestly, it feels that for all the talk about the huge future of VR by Oculus, if they really believed in it, no number would be big enough to get them to give up control of how that future is built. Most entrepreneurs who are in the business of changing the world are not that interested in relinquishing any control to someone else no matter how much that will get them paid.
I'm pretty sure I know what the deal is here, that Facebook basically told them that they can take their investors out of the picture and have the full resources to build the best consumer product they want to with custom hardware. This certainly would sound enticing but the problem is that as soon as the going gets tough that lack of absolute control is going to start to rear its head. Zuck is going to have the final call on everything, and when the VR wars heat up you can be sure he is going to make different decisions than an independent Oculus would.
What utter nonsense. Larry and Sergey were shopping Google around and no one wanted to buy, Apple was acquired from within by their investors, FB, Yahoo, Amazon all took on a massive amount of VC to get off the ground. That is the cost of doing business and when companies like Sony begin to encroach on the space that you are pioneering, it might be in your best interest to get to market, and you need cash to do that.
Palmer doesn't want to run a company, he wants to make VR a thing, and the same goes for Carmack. You have no idea what the terms of the acquisition was, so don't throw around your conjecture about who has the final say on what. Why don't we just wait and see what the outcome is before we go all Harry Caray.
Wtf are you talking about? This was an acquisiton, by definition the CEO of the buying company has the final say. Taking VC money is completely different.
But do keep in mind that the backers did bear risk- there is a significant chance that any Kickstarter project doesn't turn out, because Kickstarter shouldn't be thought of as a 'store to buy things'.
Risk is exactly what investors bear in exchange for a potential return. Companies require investment because they don't have the capital to get things moving upward otherwise, which is exactly the need that Kickstarer fulfills.
It would be nice if kickstarter campaigns could add equity as and option in the reward tiers, but it's not like these people gave their money for nothing in return.