Facebook Acquires Sofa

There's a standard model in the valley on both the supply and demand side. It goes like this:

On the demand side:

Recruiting costs money. Hiring talent is risky when you don't know the caliber. Picking up one engineer at a time is costly and inefficient because you're competing with many other great companies. Acquiring a group of proven engineers not only solves all these problems but it gives you a way to lock them into working for you for years with an earn-out. And every engineer knows that dev's who "sold a startup" get laid more.

On the supply side:

A great business model is to come up with a startup that is super-interesting to talented engineers. Raise money and recruit them in droves with the prospect of massive wealth and being the next Facebook. Hand out stock options like candy and never mention the difference between short and long-term capital gains. Then when you hit 10+ great employees, start shaking your booty around the valley and see if you can flip for $2M per engineer plus a nice cash-out for founders and investors. [Usually around $20M total].

There haven't been any significant updates for Versions since I purchased my license for it two years ago, so I don't see how the situation for Versions could get worse at this point.

Next they might be adding cloud services for its users and for that they need to capture all of the platforms for their clients.

Every few months there is an ipad Facebook app. No official app. It's about time.

Surprising, too; If some BigCo would buy the company I work for and ask me to pretty please move across the pond, I'd reconsider inf times.

However their track record with products leaves a lot to be desired?

Look at DiscoAPP. They put the app out, collected some money and left it to collect dust. I offered to buy the source and they said someday they would pick it up again. Never happened.

Versions is good app. But they simply move at a glacial pace. Again, collect money and development almost stops.

So I guess Cornerstone is going to get a lot more business as I think many long time Apple folks realize their purchases from Sofa are obsolete.

Shame because they have talent.

Edit: I'm sure it will have something to do with their design skills, which are pretty good!

But after browsing through http://www.madebysofa.com/#design, I'm absolutely floored. This is beyond top-notch.

This was a perfectly justifiable acquisition of sky-high talent.

Yes, I somewhat disagree with the acquihire in principle, but in these cases it makes sense. I liken this to buying a division from a large company. Keep the team intact, on-board them cohesively, and Facebook will have a big win here. I hope Sofa's team is successful in shifting Facebook's aesthetic from "function over form" to a better balance of the two.

I understand they wanted to capitalize on their talent, but I'm afraid that Facebook, like any other mastodon, will drain their shine. That would be really sad.