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Comment by blackhawkC17 | Hacker News Reader

> One source says that the Utah-based company's financials have improved, with a around 26% EBITDA growth in 2023, but not enough to service nearly $1.3 billion of debt that was issued when interest rates were lower.

Pluralsight hasn’t failed entirely as a company. It’s just that it can’t produce enough profits to pay down the huge debt Vista took to acquire it.

Many tech PE deals happened under low interest rates, but higher interest rates mean debt has become more expensive to service.

Pluralsight would be very successful if it took minimal VC funding and didn’t go the PE way.

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This is kind of sad. It was /is a functioning profitable public company with employees. A PE firm decides to take a huge loan to buy it, and now the company is gone. All those people lost their jobs. A huge net negative on the world and society because of greedy PE.

the company isn't gone. vista is likely getting wiped out and the lenders will own the business.

More than half the employees have been let go in round after round of layoffs for 6 quarters straight.

Leveraged buyouts just feel like something that should be plainly illegal. I know a bunch of wonks here will trip over themselves to try and justify it, but given how much of these kinds of transactions are basically "the directors just decide to empty the coffers"... at least tax it in a way that makes sense or something!

One reason for Pluralsight’s success is through acquiring a bunch of tech training and e-learning companies to have a huge content library. No doubt they used some of their quarter of a billion in VC cash to perform those acquisitions.

Who is to say they reach “unicorn” status and have a good exit if they didn’t take on that VC cash to do those acquisitions?

Besides the founders, who gives a shit if they have a good exit?

As a user, them destroying chunks of the e-learning space and cashing out is something I view as a negative.

I was just referring to the idea that they could just not take VC cash or the PE deal and that would have worked out better for them. The current structure and offering from the company are based on those things. It would look very different without those things.

For context, I've used PluralSight for 10+ years. Scott Allen (RIP) was my favorite. I'm still salty about PluralSight acquiring CodeSchool and effectively shutting it down (what was the point of that?).

> Pluralsight would be very successful if it took minimal VC funding and didn’t go the PE way.

Pluralsight wouldn't have been as big as it was without that VC funding.

You can't just imagine the company being the same as it was but without any debt. The debt was used to make the company what it was.

This is arguably more fallout from elevated interest rates, and the risk thereof, being off the radar of people that work(ed) finance professionally. The company was performing and without the debt would be fine. Vista gambled and lost. It happens.

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