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Comment by polote | Hacker News Reader

> was a team with great empathy and values, and a true desire to make this an acquisition that served all the human constituents as best as possible.

Every acquisition announcement almost paint the acquirer as an amazing company, that care deeply about the mission of the acquired company and that is aligned with its vision. But 99% of the time it is false.

This is especially false when the founders don't even stay in the company. We should allow founders to say "We sold the company to get money and do something else, we hope the acquiring company will take great care of our customers"

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Trouble is, you can do this once just fine. But it means the next time you want to get investors or sell a company, potential payers will also weigh your past performance. If you say "yeah we have no idea what's going to happen, good luck" and the company tanks after being sold, who would trust that it wasn't your actions at fault?

As much as it sucks for consumers, the self-interested thing to do is sing the praises of your buyer -- because your reputation is at stake otherwise.

This is the game right? Build something people need, and ideally situate such that a larger player with deep pockets goes "yes, this" and cashes you out. Much like the "Thank you for smoking" film trope, you can't take the money AND call the press for the expose on how dirty the whole thing is. I'm reminded of the South Park founders more or less laughing "yeah we sold out" because why wouldn't you? Everyone has a number (unless you're a martyr, bless you, or already fuck-you-money). That number turns out to be much lower than you might expect when the real deal knocks on your door.

> But 99% of the time it is false.

Another possibility: it's true far more than 1% of the time, yet that's not enough reason for the acquirer to make the same decisions as the previous owners would have.

The acquirer can be amazing, care deeply about the mission of the acquired company, and see it as aligned… and after a year or a few years, decide that it's not the best use of their resources. The difference doesn't need to be that the acquirer isn't amazing or doesn't care; often, it's simply that their decisions have different inputs.

What can they really say, honestly? "Hey, we sold out to the highest bidder. No clue how this is going to go, but we felt the time was right to cash out. Bye!"

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