Re:Apollo will close down on June 30th
by bubblethink on Thursday June 08, 2023 @03:41PM
(#36247612)
Fair enough. It just isn't the slam dunk that the post makes it out to be. He made some extremely vague proposition that can easily be misinterpreted and it was ultimately unproductive.
The claim still stands, given that in the same call Reddit immediately and openly admitted that they misinterpreted him, only to later turn around and lie about it.
It’s not like the person on the other end of the line had no idea exactly what he was proposing. Even if the dev isn’t experienced at negotiating something like this you can bet the person on the other end of the line was.
Re:Apollo will close down on June 30th
by bubblethink on Friday June 09, 2023 @04:33AM
(#36254970)
Actually, I'm not sure if it's entirely clear to anyone on the other side (or even the world at large) how to value something. To a large extent, Reddit has drunk the cool aid and internalized that APIs are worth X. So going to a meeting with the implicit assumption that everyone knows that pricing is BS is not a safe assumption. They've already had the pricing discussion, so throwing more oblique references to BS pricing is not productive. It's like in a normal human argument. Once you are at an impasse, throwing more facts or presenting a logical paradox doesn't change the other person's mind.
The actual amounts were irrelevant to the offer. The author was clearly trying to feel out whether Reddit would be open to a buyout.
The response seems to be a resounding no.
Re:Apollo will close down on June 30th
by karmelapple on Thursday June 08, 2023 @10:08PM
(#36252246)
If he was even entertaining the idea of maybe selling his company, the least he could have done was get a negotiator with mergers and acquisitions experience. If he's making reasonably good money off of Apollo, he could have afforded a few hours of a good attorney.
This call was awful to hear as an entrepreneur. He is not at all clear about what he wants, and I think he's honest when he says it's "mostly a joke" - I'm getting the sense he threw out a strangely-worded scenario hoping that he could perhaps get some money. If he was serious about getting money, and he's primarily a software developer and not a negotiator, it would've been lovely if he had gotten proper counsel for this negotiation.
* * *
He's a 20-something year old developer. This isn't his comfort zone and did not expect himself to be in this position.
I know I would be terrible if I was in his shoes.