American tech giants are making life tough for startups (2018)

Re:American tech giants are making life tough for startups (... by scarface74 on Thursday June 02, 2022 @03:03PM (#31599186)

Once the startup takes investor funding, it’s irrelevant what those inside the startup want.

That being said, we all go to work to exchange labor for money. It’s naive for employees to see working for any for profit company as anything more than just a financial transaction.

Investors know that the chances of a startup to go public and then be profitable enough to have long term stock gains is infinitesimally small.

Can you name one startup that has been really successful - ie throwing off crazy profits and margins since Facebook?

Investors aren’t interested in “lifestyle businesses”.

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Re:American tech giants are making life tough for startups (... by jdsully on Thursday June 02, 2022 @05:54PM (#31601000)

> Once the startup takes investor funding, it’s irrelevant what those inside the startup want.

It really depends on the ownership structure, and that will depend on leverage at the time of fundraising. YC companies are unlikely to give up control until Series B (but like all things your mileage may vary).

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Re:American tech giants are making life tough for startups (... by nonrandomstring on Friday June 03, 2022 @06:22AM (#31606465)

I don't know what the contractual structure entails, but I thought this recent post from R Bronson [1] is an exemplar of strategic investment in "good cause" projects without a nose for short term ROI, planned acquisition or any 'controlling' investor behaviours.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31598978

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Re:American tech giants are making life tough for startups (... by jdsully on Friday June 03, 2022 @10:32AM (#31608822)

If you don’t have leverage when raising money the opportunities to lose control are endless.

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