Being proud and being acquired aren’t mutually exclusive things. You can be proud of projects that are not viable financially. They are proud of what they built and are also moving to a place where they can continue building more.
Continuing to struggle for money isn’t a requirement for building cool stuff.
I had stepped out of the high-rise office into the blinding San Francisco sun, a freshly minted millionaire wrestling with the crushing guilt of sunsetting my own creation. We built a business to be proud of, I tried to tell myself, clutching the signed term sheet. There must be a lot of pride and meaning in this.
> it has been our mission to forever protect our families from any financial misfortune. We hoped we could help the world make time for what matters along the way, but ultimately money comes first.
There's nothing wrong with selling out and getting rich. There's no need to lie about it.
Warms my heart to learn their families will finally be able to afford nutritious meals, put clothes on their backs and maybe even afford a bike to go to school rather than walking 2h everyday. We need more uplifting stories like this one. Thank you salesforce.
Jokes aside though, many (most?) acquihires are for very little $. Often just founders not being able to continue and just wanting an honorable exit + guaranteed jobs for their teams.
A valuable skill as entrepreneurs, is to know when to stop and move on. Recognizing what you built may not be viable financially long term or is no longer a fit for the market and then making adjustments is what good entrepreneurs do. Sometimes it means shutting shop, while other times it means getting acquired and refocusing on the path forward.
This is one of those things that sounds so good with a quick read, but for every example you give me of a smart entrepreneur who knew when to pull the plug I can gave you a gritty, determined one who stayed focus on the vision and built something successful. In this case did they ever have market fit or financial viablilty?
The Guardian's twitter/X "exit" must be the dumbest thing they ever did. Their site was not so aggressively pushing for donations/subscriptions/accounts before that.
LLMs have earned their place in many jobs, but I struggle to see claws as more than a rather expensive waste of time and tokens. Downsides are gargantuan, effects of dead internet theory will be ubiquitous.
Maybe? But I guess I won't find out until I try it a bit.
For now, I'm not posting anything - just managing some calendars and inboxes and task lists and saving me some data entry. Not sure how that makes downsides gargantuan, or contributes to the internet dying. (Though obviously the bot will get worse as the internet continues to die if that's what it's using as a source)
There must be a lot of pride and meaning in being run over by Saleforce's money truck.
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