Re:AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B
by marstall on Wednesday October 29, 2025 @02:30PM
(#45751062)
How does that possibly work? How do they continue with zero of the staff?
Re:AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B
by amiga386 on Wednesday October 29, 2025 @03:23PM
(#45751739)
Simple. They get new staff whose job is to shove intrusive surveillance and advertising into the product and push out an update, they don't have to support or develop the product.
The company bought the product to bilk money out of its existing users. They throw the product in the bin once all the users have gone.
Sadly, some ants get infected with corydceps. Tragic for the ant, but the other ants get it the fuck away from their colony, because they don't want to be next.
Re:AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B
by mtgentry on Wednesday October 29, 2025 @04:07PM
(#45752364)
As an Evernote user, Bending Spoons has been iterating fast over the past couple years to improve the product. It’s much better than it used to be.
Re:AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B
by sentientslug on Wednesday October 29, 2025 @07:26PM
(#45754471)
What the value prop of continuing to use Evernote versus other newer solutions like Notion? Interested to hear from someone still using the product
Re:AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B
by mtgentry on Thursday October 30, 2025 @03:00AM
(#45757135)
Notion is more than I need. 99% of the time I just need to write something down for later.
Re:AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B
by jimnotgym on Thursday October 30, 2025 @05:57AM
(#45758160)
I have tried them all, and ended up with a fileofax rip off, and a box of index cards!
Re:AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B
by everfrustrated on Wednesday October 29, 2025 @02:39PM
(#45751192)
They replaced them with staff in Italy. Bending Spoons is an Italian (Milan) company.
They wanted the product not the developers.
Re:AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B
by dangus on Wednesday October 29, 2025 @03:27PM
(#45751796)
Transitional severance agreements to have the current staff transfer operations to new staff.
Re:AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B
by xp84 on Wednesday October 29, 2025 @04:34PM
(#45752670)
This is exactly how European companies do when they acquire American ones, especially "Tech" companies that have well-paid technical staff. You can hire in Eastern Europe for far less, and can hire in Western Europe for still a significant bargain compared to what engineers and associated people make in California - plus, dealing with an 8+ hour time difference is brutal compared to keeping it all in Europe.
A friend I know is going through such an acquisition, funny thing is it's a European company acquiring his, but owned by an American PE firm. The American PE firm knows that cutting-edge tech is developed by expensive engineers on the West Coast, but when it's time to milk a more mature company for cash flow, you want cheaper European staff.
Re:AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B
by philipallstar on Wednesday October 29, 2025 @05:06PM
(#45753037)
Almost anywhere in America is also cheaper than California.
Re:AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B
by pavel_lishin on Wednesday October 29, 2025 @09:55PM
(#45755568)
Yep. The NYC area is one exception. I've worked at a company that was acquired, and they laid off quite a few of the NYC-area employees. Rumor had it that some of them were making more than their managers, and their managers' managers.
Re:AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B
by consp on Thursday October 30, 2025 @07:19AM
(#45758749)
> Rumor had it that some of them were making more than their managers, and their managers' managers.
So on par with actual value created.
Re:AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B
by philipwhiuk on Thursday October 30, 2025 @09:46AM
(#45759988)
It's pretty wild to describe Italy as 'Eastern Europe'
Re:AOL to be sold to Bending Spoons for $1.5B
by heystefan on Thursday October 30, 2025 @10:51AM
(#45760679)
They didn't describe Italy as Eastern Europe, they said you can hire in Eastern Europe for far less. Eg. you can do that from Italy and keep people in the same timezone and relatively close by.
Damn.