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Comment by callmeed | Hacker News Reader

> I wonder what someone who owned equity in Homejoy would think of this.

You mean someone like Google Ventures?

That doesn't resolve my concern. It actually makes things even shadier in my mind since Google Ventures was just one of many backers. A cynical mind might view this move as simultaneously acquiring the tech talent behind a startup, laying off any non-essential staff that wouldn't be attractive to acquire, freezing out all the other investors who had money in the company, and ducking the lawsuits that the previous company was involved in.

What's wrong with hiring someone? I've never understood why investors, sales/idea people, and various other hangers-on should be rewarded during the acquisition of a technical team.

> That doesn't resolve my concern.

Since your concern appears to be "how can I make employees the slaves of investors?", that's no bad thing.

I've always been skeptical of corporate/strategic VCs for exactly this reason. At the end of the day, no matter what kind of Chinese wall you put in there, people are people and corporate agenda is a corporate agenda and it's perhaps naive to think you can separate the two.

Corporate VCs are effectively a way for cash rich corporations to buy call options on promising and/or potentially disruptive teams and technologies and keep close tabs on what is happening and how things are progressing. I can't think of a situation where corporate VC was a markedly better outcome for a startup or entrepreneur than a traditional financial VC.

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