Then the bigger the company gets, the further removed you are from your original dream and when someone waves a big pile of money in your face, it's a very tempting offer
Also many of the founders have an "entrepreneurial spirit", which really means to me they prefer to start things, make it a success (or not) and then move on, over and over again. They are not often a "lifer" that hang on at the same company till they retire. Some are, many not.
The money stops at a certain level, then they become a manager to reach the next pay grade. Then don't enjoy their job because they're not doing the engineering, but can't go back to the lower salary once they've adjusted to the lifestyle
Didn't Oakley sunglasses try something similar when Luxottica first tried to buy them and then Luxottica managed to ruin them and ended up buying them much cheaper?
And hasn't Microsoft already done the same to a large number of startups?
Lots of enterprise UI is like that for me, actually, including most PM software more complex than GH issues + boards. I find them extremely uncomfortable to use because I'm never confident I'm doing the right thing, or that what I'm doing is safe to do, or whether I'll be able to find the things I need again.
Slack is heading that way with some of their changes (the way drafts and threads are handled is juuuuust on the edge of putting it in that territory) but I still never feel "lost" for long, on there.
"We realized a few years ago that the value of switching to Slack was so obvious and the advantages so overwhelming that every business would be using Slack, or “something just like it,” within the decade."[0]
They were right about the "something just like it" part.[1]
[0] https://slack.com/blog/news/dear-microsoft#.r90mkakwl
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195092/slack-new-user-r...
Not just startups. They tried to acquire Nokia's handset business and initially failed. Stephen Elop (ex-MS) was installed as new CEO via investor pressure, Nokia abandoned their promising Linux-based phones and changed direction to Windows Mobile and then it was acquired after all. And failed.
Elop has, of course, denied having been a trojan horse for Microsoft at Nokia after the initial failed acquisiton attempt. Nokia's share price and profit lowered considerably during his tenure as a CEO, making it much cheaper to acquire.
Resisting acquisition can be very challenging, and takes a lot of energy and time.
"Promising" is an interesting choice of words here.
If anything, "promising" may be the wrong choice of words because it was arguably better and more mature than the equivalent debut iOS and webOS devices at launch. Of course that's cheating a bit, as the tech stack had some history behind it by that point. Still, for a line-incepting product it was very impressive execution, especially for a company that was still so hung up on a legacy product line at the same time (Symbian).
Personally, I used one as well and I don't find it very hard to imagine a version of the world where it could still be my preferred OS/ecosystem right now. It was truly a strange situation, and Nokia of the day one strange animal of a dissonant company. I don't know if Nokia would have made it without the MS interference -- but I think it didn't help.
This is a nice little nostalgia anecdote too that gets discussed on HN occasionally: http://nition.momentstudio.co.nz/2014/08/the-nokia-n9-alarm-...
The market at that point pretty much decided to skip that mess and go with IOS or Android.
Not at all. You just have to be a company that is a) private, b) not funded by VC, and c) profitable enough. Then all you have to do is just politely reject all incoming requests (e.g., "sorry, we are not interested [at this time]"). :-)
Also worth noting, many of these smaller companies plan on getting acquired. That is their cash-out. In particular the ones which accept VC money are under tremendous pressure to cash out in one of these deals.
I also would prefer companies stuck it out, but there are huge risks if you stick it out and massive payoffs you get from a buyout, it’s rarely in the founder’s best interest.
Like their notable partnership with Netflix!
Oh wait no, I meant their obviously built to compete with Netflix Amazon Prime Video service.
Obviously, they have the opportunity to get even bigger and either IPO or get purchased for a higher price... but they also have a risk of losing market share (and value) to competitors... or being acquired by a larger company might give them the funding, marketing power, business alignment, etc. to accelerate their growth.
(Not talking specifically about Discord - I know almost nothing about their service.)