It's unlikely. I suspect many people start businesses with the intention of doing what they love and making a decent living out of it.

Then the bigger the company gets, the further removed you are from your original dream and when someone waves a big pile of money in your face, it's a very tempting offer

This is often a very good reason why many sucessfull startups sell.

Also many of the founders have an "entrepreneurial spirit", which really means to me they prefer to start things, make it a success (or not) and then move on, over and over again. They are not often a "lifer" that hang on at the same company till they retire. Some are, many not.

Or similar to why engineers get stuck in managerial roles.

The money stops at a certain level, then they become a manager to reach the next pay grade. Then don't enjoy their job because they're not doing the engineering, but can't go back to the lower salary once they've adjusted to the lifestyle

Another factor is that you may believe the larger company can take the idea you are passionate about further.

In practice they /usually/ take it right where you left it, and leave it there forever

or worse, at as common: make it worse in every way

>I'd love to see a few smaller software companies refuse to get bought up and instead cultivate an independent mindset.

Didn't Oakley sunglasses try something similar when Luxottica first tried to buy them and then Luxottica managed to ruin them and ended up buying them much cheaper?

And hasn't Microsoft already done the same to a large number of startups?

> And hasn't Microsoft already done the same to a large number of startups?

Not just startups. They tried to acquire Nokia's handset business and initially failed. Stephen Elop (ex-MS) was installed as new CEO via investor pressure, Nokia abandoned their promising Linux-based phones and changed direction to Windows Mobile and then it was acquired after all. And failed.

Elop has, of course, denied having been a trojan horse for Microsoft at Nokia after the initial failed acquisiton attempt. Nokia's share price and profit lowered considerably during his tenure as a CEO, making it much cheaper to acquire.

Resisting acquisition can be very challenging, and takes a lot of energy and time.

Yes, it pretty much went that way, but Elop seems dead set on killing off nokia so Microsoft could buy it for pennies on the dollar. First it was the "we are on a burning platform letter", then abandoned all their current customers, moved everything to windows mobile, then months later switched to a new version of the microsoft mobile with no upgrade path for the users who just bought new windows mobile phones.

The market at that point pretty much decided to skip that mess and go with IOS or Android.

> Resisting acquisition can be very challenging, and takes a lot of energy and time.

Not at all. You just have to be a company that is a) private, b) not funded by VC, and c) profitable enough. Then all you have to do is just politely reject all incoming requests (e.g., "sorry, we are not interested [at this time]"). :-)

> Nokia abandoned their promising Linux-based phones

"Promising" is an interesting choice of words here.

The Nokia N9 was very well-received. If you need lots of glowing citations: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N9#Reception

If anything, "promising" may be the wrong choice of words because it was arguably better and more mature than the equivalent debut iOS and webOS devices at launch. Of course that's cheating a bit, as the tech stack had some history behind it by that point. Still, for a line-incepting product it was very impressive execution, especially for a company that was still so hung up on a legacy product line at the same time (Symbian).

Personally, I used one as well and I don't find it very hard to imagine a version of the world where it could still be my preferred OS/ecosystem right now. It was truly a strange situation, and Nokia of the day one strange animal of a dissonant company. I don't know if Nokia would have made it without the MS interference -- but I think it didn't help.

This is a nice little nostalgia anecdote too that gets discussed on HN occasionally: http://nition.momentstudio.co.nz/2014/08/the-nokia-n9-alarm-...

Example #1: Teams is currently eating Slack.

I still recall their 2016 full page add in the New York Times

"We realized a few years ago that the value of switching to Slack was so obvious and the advantages so overwhelming that every business would be using Slack, or “something just like it,” within the decade."[0]

They were right about the "something just like it" part.[1]

[0] https://slack.com/blog/news/dear-microsoft#.r90mkakwl

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2020/3/26/21195092/slack-new-user-r...

Yep. It's not enough to have a better product when Teams comes "free" for a lot of orgs.

I don’t know at which point slack is better. We use both and I find teams annoying and weird but I prefer it because it is less distracting than slack. In some ways slack feels designed to keep my attention and stay engaged.

I haven't used Teams in almost two years, but when I did I never felt like I was sure "where" I was, or where anything else was. I'd find myself "somewhere" not have no confidence I'd ever be able to get back. I hated using it. Anything I cared about I'd copy out, or keep notes, including stuff that I'd absolutely leave to Slack to keep for me (so, middling-important stuff).

Lots of enterprise UI is like that for me, actually, including most PM software more complex than GH issues + boards. I find them extremely uncomfortable to use because I'm never confident I'm doing the right thing, or that what I'm doing is safe to do, or whether I'll be able to find the things I need again.

Slack is heading that way with some of their changes (the way drafts and threads are handled is juuuuust on the edge of putting it in that territory) but I still never feel "lost" for long, on there.

Unfortunately the smaller companies don't have a choice. Many acquisitions from Big Tech come with a threat - sell your company or we will move into your space and tank your valuation.

Sometimes they simply don't have a viable path to staying independent and profitable. Discord has tried a few things to earn more money (premium subscriptions, a game store) that didn't work out. I don't think they have a lot of options other than selling.

Did they not work out? I see people boosting servers and people with paid accounts very often. It seems they had a market willing to pay.

They make revenue, but I don't think they profit. I honestly doubt my $5 subscription offsets my costs as a user + my share of the unpaying users. Not that I pay that close of attention to their financials.

I think compared to Microsoft's offer, no.

discord is too big to be killed this easily. any msft copycat will be like facebook trying to kill snapchat

There are at least a couple out there. Snapchat turned down a $3B offer from Facebook to stay independent, and I believe Twitter have turned down similar offers through the years.

Dropbox as well, they're not doing too bad either with a market cap of $11bn. That's quite impressive considering pretty much everybody has developed a competing service, and they must have known that would be inevitable.

Mostly Microsoft, Google, and Facebook. Amazon is far more likely to partner with a company than clone it’s products. Apple acquires mostly smaller companies, often things you’ve never heard of.

Also worth noting, many of these smaller companies plan on getting acquired. That is their cash-out. In particular the ones which accept VC money are under tremendous pressure to cash out in one of these deals.

I also would prefer companies stuck it out, but there are huge risks if you stick it out and massive payoffs you get from a buyout, it’s rarely in the founder’s best interest.

> Amazon is far more likely to partner with a company than clone it’s products

Like their notable partnership with Netflix!

Oh wait no, I meant their obviously built to compete with Netflix Amazon Prime Video service.

I meant partner with them then clone it’s products. Or just clone their products. That’s a total difference in meaning.

What's in it for the smaller software companies in "refusing" to get bought up?

Obviously, they have the opportunity to get even bigger and either IPO or get purchased for a higher price... but they also have a risk of losing market share (and value) to competitors... or being acquired by a larger company might give them the funding, marketing power, business alignment, etc. to accelerate their growth.

(Not talking specifically about Discord - I know almost nothing about their service.)

Yeah.... but also a good way to get paid for a lot of people who then go on to start up new and interesting things that may or may not get dominated by the big 6.

That's impossible.Tech is currently unregulated anarchy. Big Tech is allowed to do whatever it wants despite obviously using predatory pricing.