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Comment by minimaxir | Hacker News Reader

This acquisition is...unusual. I strongly suspect it's not a 10x exit. (last raised $15M in 2019: https://www.crunchbase.com/organization/spell )

Reddit obviously has the data for robust machine learning, but not sure how an experiments-management startup aligns with it unless it's an acquihire.

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Acquihire.

"Our next challenge is to apply what we’ve built to improve the user experience for redditors"

"we’ll no longer be signing up new commercial customers to the Spell service"

https://spell.ml/blog/spell-joins-reddit-YqtKRhEAACMAgbU9

Do the founders get any money out of it or not much.

Depends on the deal, but if the founders are in control and the company wasn't death-spiraling, they usually do decently well (but not so well that they immediately quit their new job).

Assuming the founders are stock holders, they agreed to part with their share. Its unlikely that they were persuaded to do so without the promise of a significant payout.

Disclosure: former Reddit employee

It's definitely an acquihire. MLOps has been one of Reddit's weaker areas historically, so this acquisition makes sense to get a talented team in with a clear understanding of the space.

This is the only explanation that makes sense. This strategy in general seems a bit short-sighted though. I suspect engineer retention is going to drop off a cliff after whatever acquisition bonuses have paid off.

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