What are reasons it's unlikely?
(I like Zulip btw)
The structural reason is that we're intentionally not taking VC funding, which does more or less inevitable lead to that outcome.
Less structural but just as important is that my personal priority is in creating great open source software for the world, not personal enrichment.
This thread may be useful: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23105031.
* 100% of the software we write is FOSS.
* We intentionally haven't taken VC funding despite plenty of opportunity to do so, to ensure we can remain an independent, values-focused company.
* Most features are built by our open source community, not fulltime employees.
* Zulip was a distributed company pre-pandemic (while we did have a SF coworking space walking distance from my home, I as the founder only went in about once every week or two, and essentially all collaboration was over Zulip or GitHub).
They acquired the original Zulip startup in 2014. Then they open-sourced the code, and Zulip since 2016 is backed by a new company which is the one tabbott is describing above.
While I've already kind of fallen out of love with Slack, I do appreciate that they are independent. I do understand why smaller companies do this, but generally it results in a crappier product. Skype is a perfect example of a good product left to rot on the corporate vine.
The software world would be so much richer if there were more difficult for bigger companies to suck them up and turn them into corporate goop. I'm not necessarily suggesting regulation here. Just wishful thinking.