[hga]

I'm not sure that's entirely true (well, except for the reporting thing). Some companies have a reputation for acquiring smaller companies with the express purpose of keeping their staff, e.g. Cisco (at least in times past) and Google.

But, yes, most of the time this is an important part of what makes the vast majority of high tech acquisitions fail miserably.

[earl]

Even G often seems to perform quite poorly. Viz Dodgeball / 4square. Thoroughly alienating Dennis Crowley seems like an enormous mistake. Or Paul Buchheit. Or the Delicious guy who worked at G but didn't find it a welcoming environment. If they were serious about social, they'd do whatever it takes to keep people like Joshua who've built successful social products.

I'm coming around to Zuckerberg's opinion that social is something a company is built around, not something you staple on or buy after the fact.

[rbanffy]

> Or the Delicious guy who worked at G

This comes across very weird...

I know... Wrong website for jokes like these. Couldn't help.

[iuyfgtrghjk]

There's a Joel Spolsky podcast about Qt (pronounced cute) where he talks about the cute guy giving the talk - to the confused embarrassment of the other speakers.