{"id":2384,"date":"2013-04-03T12:31:49","date_gmt":"2013-04-03T16:31:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/?p=2384"},"modified":"2013-04-03T12:31:49","modified_gmt":"2013-04-03T16:31:49","slug":"an-acquisition-is-always-a-failure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/2013\/04\/03\/an-acquisition-is-always-a-failure\/","title":{"rendered":"An acquisition is always a failure"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I typically refer to the IAC sale as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the worst business decision of my life.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure IAC is worse than any other large company in this regard. An entrepreneur is someone who, almost artistically, designs a living entity which embodies the values, beliefs, and ambitions of the creator. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s impossible for a larger entity to swallow a smaller one without completely reshaping it. When this process begins, a wild visionary \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the entrepreneur type \u00e2\u20ac\u201c is the most toxic, indigestible actor imaginable. And this is why I roll my eyes when a new acquisition is announced: Because I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t see it as a triumphant graduation but a sacrifice to an industry that is afraid to dream big.An acquisition, or an aqui-hire, is always a failure. Either the founders failed to achieve their goal, or \u00e2\u20ac\u201c far likelier \u00e2\u20ac\u201c they failed to dream big enough. The proper ambition for a tech entrepreneur should be to join the ranks of the great tech companies, or, at least, to create a profitable, independent company beloved by employees, customers, and shareholders.<\/p>\n<p>via <a href=\"http:\/\/pandodaily.com\/2013\/04\/02\/an-acquisition-is-always-a-failure\/\">An acquisition is always a failure<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I typically refer to the IAC sale as \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the worst business decision of my life.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not sure IAC is worse than any other large company in this regard. An entrepreneur is someone who, almost artistically, designs a living entity which embodies the values, beliefs, and ambitions of the creator. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s impossible for a larger &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/2013\/04\/03\/an-acquisition-is-always-a-failure\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;An acquisition is always a failure&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2skW4-Cs","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}