| ▲ | FirmwareBurner 5 days ago |
| I think everyone knew, even without looking at any data, that startups were in a bubble thanks to Covid, when every "shoeshine boy" was studying to be a webdev at a start-up. Like how many food delivery apps that are actually profitable can the economy handle? |
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| ▲ | TylerE 5 days ago | parent | next [-] |
| I think the real real giveaway is that like 90% there's a big exit, it's an aquihire and the "product" is quickly dumped. |
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| ▲ | JCM9 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Yep. Many / most aquihires are pretty ugly financially. While the headline sounds impressive (“X startup acquired for $250M”) the reality is that with preferred cap tables and terms most folks see nothing and investors are merely trying to recoup some losses or make a modest (less than S&P500 index fund return) return on investment. It’s basically a fire sale to salvage what’s left from the wreckage. Founders might get a little something and most shareholder employees get nothing. | | |
| ▲ | nkingsy 5 days ago | parent [-] | | Don’t they usually get a better stock package than the average new hire? | | |
| ▲ | 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | [deleted] | |
| ▲ | gdbsjjdn 5 days ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In my experience what the founders usually get is a bigger locked up retention package. The investors want the cash, and the acquirer wants the founders to stay. | |
| ▲ | mandevil 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | The employees along for the ride on an acquihire? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Depends a lot on how generous the founder/target of the acquihire is. |
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| ▲ | dsr_ 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] |
| The problem is usually not "there are 300 food delivery services" but "there are three food delivery services and they control the market". |
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| ▲ | PhantomHour 5 days ago | parent | next [-] | | It's a business model problem; The "Uber" business model relies on a monopoly. The business model is 1) "Have artificially low prices to push all competing business into bankrupty", 2) "Now that we're a monopoly, raise prices massively", 3) Massive profit, so long as no government starts doing anything about the fact that both steps #1 and #2 are illegal. That business model fails the moment you have multiple startups dumping the market, none can move to step #2 because they'd bleed all their users to whichever competitor is still in step #1. | |
| ▲ | dheera 5 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | It's restaurants that don't want to deal with 300 apps. They will pick the top 3 and call it a day. | | |
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