Exit Interview: Founders look back at acquisitions by Google, AOL, Microsoft | Hacker News Reader

Exit Interview: Founders look back at acquisitions by Google, AOL, Microsoft

37signals.com

106 pointsjoshuacc11 comments

It was a tough decision whether or not to sell Intrinsa to Microsoft back in 1999. I was the only one of the founders still at the company at the time, and the board was split. In retrospect, it couldn't have worked out any better. Combining our PREfix team with some really good people from Microsoft Research moved the technology forward a lot faster than we would have otherwise -- and tech transferring the stripped-down version of PREfast into Visual Studio put it in the hands of a lot of users across the world. At the same time, we found a good way to support our existing UNIX customers; and as expected, once we had validated the market segment, other competitors emerged, and Coverity has now taken things way farther than we ever did. From a career perspective, it worked out well for me and the others involved.

One of the key things we did before deciding to sell was look a lot at the political environment we were getting into. An acquisition's success depends a lot on its champions' political fortunes and how the "not invented here" antibodies get dealt with. Also, we were working with some great people who we clicked well with. And the problem we were addressing was very strategic to the company, so we got a lot of attention. So these are all things I'd consider in any future acquisition situations.

Anyone else feel that these quotes have been cherry-picked to support 37 signals business philosophy?

Completely agree. Other than the quote about Grand Central ("At the end of the day, more users were definitely better off due to the acquisition."), all of them paint the acquisition in negative manner. But I guess it's not surprising. There are far more stories about acquisition gone wrong instead of acquisition gone right.

mediabistro

"I consider myself lucky. That was not the case with our new owner. Alan Meckler is very much an entrepreneur and he told me early on he learned the hard way to listen to the instincts of the founding entrepreneur after an acquisition. "

There are far more stories about acquisition gone wrong instead of acquisition gone right.

Don't you think that that might be due to the fact that stories where things simply worked out more or less as planned are very dull to tell and hear.

That's the whole point, this series of articles isn't an unbiased documentary about acquisitions. 37Signals likes to "prove" that they are right with articles about their way of doing things. It wouldn't shock me at all if one day they sold their company and then wrote a post about the way they sold and who they sold it to was completely different then all these other cases, etc...

* It wouldn't shock me at all if one day they sold their company...*

They've already sold part of it (to Jeff Bezos) and they'll inevitably sell more of it when one of them gets old/bored/etc.

And the last line that things were condensed and edited. Condensed, ok, edited? wtf. It doesn't feel intellectually honest as a blog post.

This is getting old. Why is 37signals so bitter?

Not enough magazine covers.

Normally I'd rant about 37s' rhetoric getting old. But with the Groupon IPO on the horizon and the overbearing feeling that there's some kind of startup bubble about to burst, I think I'll cut them a little slack this time.

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