[jasode]

> I don't consider the founders, investors, or MS evil.

Fair point if I overstated your perspective on VCs.

I don't know if English is your primary language but if you didn't know, the phrase "sold out" is virtually always used in a derogatory manner. When one writes "<X> sold out to <Y>", the <Y> is the proverbial bad guy. It's also parsed as an insult to both <X> and <Y>. E.g. "It's a shame that guitarist sold out to BadMusic Record Company."

It seemed like "sold out to investors" emotionally taints the VCs as bad actors and poisoned the discussion. (Yes, some VCs are bad and unethical.)

In any case, people should think of VCs as one type of financing option. (Bootstrap is another, but that has its own risks and downsides. Bank loans are another finance option but most startup founders have no collateral.) If you don't want to pressure your company into a big exit, do not talk to VCs.

>So, normally an acquisition is considered the less ideal outcome of those two. It implies some sort of failure to deliver.

Maybe. One of the VCs I saw mentioned that acquisitions are actually the more common exits for B2B companies. Github (enterprise) was more B2B than B2C. If this is the consensus view, both a16z and Sequoia may have anticipated acquisition as the most likely (and successful) outcome at the time they invested.

[x0x0]

Well, the founders certainly are (as near as I can tell) letting MSFT and their VCs take heat for a decision the founders alone made.

Taking $350m in VC means you promise to build a stupidly profitable company or sell it to a high bidder. That's the deal, and it's completely understood by anyone in a position to raise nine figures of VC.

[jillesvangurp]

I'm not native indeed but fluent enough to deal with the subtleties. I like to use strong language when making points in public fora. It's a style that is admittedly a bit over dramatic but tends to provoke people a bit more into engaging.

From my dealings with VCs my understanding is that they are mainly incentivized by investing and less by the success of those investments because the timelines are half a decade or more and they reap their rewards long before that happens. Basically the job of a VC is to spend money in some fund. It's a very competitive market to be in. Acquisitions are the tool of choice to make sure under-performing investments are not a total loss. A lot of acquisitions and acquihires are effectively investors consolidating their losses. It's common for them to have stakes in both the acquiring and acquired company. In this case, that's probably not what happened of course. But still, the investors are probably quite happy with this outcome.