Being acquired doesn't have to suck

This is a case of one small company acquiring another slightly smaller company. I think that is as important as anything in terms of the Ordered List employees being happy as Github employees. In many cases the acquirer is several orders of magnitude larger than the acquiree, and I think that is what leads to the "suck" associated with being acquired.

I worked at a company of 200 employees that was acquired by a company of 200,000 employees, and it was a bad enough experience that I promised myself I'd never work for a big company again, and that if I ever worked for a company that was acquired by a big company, I'd start a new job search immediately.

I think this is fairly standard practice, but I've only been through it once. When we were acquired, management came up a with a set of timelines and associated goals. 30 days, 90 days, 6 months, 1 year. None of the short term goals were that big of a deal. Log in to the new HR system. Do a sexual harassment training. It was the longer term "synergy targets" that were the killers. Tracking every minute of your day to a project. New project management techniques and new project managers. No more input from engineers on new features. It happens slowly enough that you don't just walk in one day and realize you're working at a different company; it's more insidious than that. I'll never put myself through it again.

It's pretty unusual to be acquired by another startup. It's generally the culture clash, hierarchy and bureaucracy that make acquisition suck for the acquiree. None of that happens when a startup acquires you.

Great example of an acquisition that will work out - two startups motivated by the same type of goals and both, as far as I can work out, optimised for happiness, not optimised for profit.

It's different when you're the boss.

has github ever taken outside money?