[dkarl]

The interesting years are 2 and 3. That's when the parent company tries to optimize things (e.g. streamline the sales force), create synergies, etc and you start seeing the changes.

In my one experience with acquisition, that's when upper management's bonuses got tied to "synergy" metrics and suddenly everybody had to learn a new relationship to reality. Almost everything we did for a whole year was dedicated to gaming those metrics, and our independence as an organization depended on supporting upper management's assertion that we were saving tens of millions of dollars. The opportunity cost in product development was enormous, but it was subtly and not-so-subtly communicated to us that now that we were part of BigCorp, we shouldn't worry about small time stuff like keeping things working and making customers happy. At least not in the reflexive, focused way we had before. Making and keeping deals was 15-dimensional chess to them, and they would tell us exactly if, when, and to what degree the dimensions of quality and product delivery mattered. Meanwhile we should do as little product work as possible and focus on the goal inflating executive bonuses by claiming imaginary synergies through integration.

[apohn]

>Making and keeping deals was 15-dimensional chess to them

I've supported sales cycles at small and big companies. I think this is one of the best one line descriptions of what really happens when big companies want to "sell to the CIO" or retain a large existing customer. Sometimes actually solving customer problems is not even 1 of those 15 dimensions.

[chii]

It's dysfunctional all the way down.

The CIO being soled to isn't interested in "solving the problem" of their organization either. They have their own metrics, and so on goes the rabbit hole...

[new12345]

It seems like the moment big corps acquire a well performing product, product starts to loose its value, like trying to move a viscous liquid between containers using a sieve. Eventually, acquired product quality get completely destroyed and it end up creating gap in market that product was serving. I think its good for new product startup as it creates opportunities for them. Its like nonterminating cycle of creation and destruction.

[1290cc]

And this is how its always been. Its similar to some kind of natural life cycle. All those founders out there seeking problems to solve? They just need to look at what big tech is acquiring and begin building a competing product. Often times the clients of the acquired company aren't pleased about having to a new relationship with Big Tech Co either.