[pawosty]

That's just incredible. Milk made one application, gave it away for free, summarily shut it down, and sold for $15 - $30 million. I understand these guys are very talented, and that Google was buying the talent more than the product, but that's quite a price for some gifted people!

[jpdoctor]

> quite a price for some gifted people!

Every time I saw this happen in the 90s the result was the same: Small team shows up in big company after big $$, gets frustrated with big company BS, doesn't really care and runs down the game clock until vesting is nearly complete, leaves without fanfare.

I'm sure there must be counter examples, please let me know some if you have them.

[alabut]

"I'm sure there must be counter examples"

Measure Map was a small team acquired by google that made a pretty analytics app for blogs and they went on to overhaul Google Analytics, which at the time still look pretty rough because it was an acquired app (Urchin) that was made for power users.

That team worked pretty well. After everyone vested, Jeff Veen put the band back together and they started cranking out other apps, first WikiRank and then Typekit, which was just bought by Adobe.

I can see the parallels with Milk: 1) a small interdisciplinary team that works well together and with a kickass designer (Daniel Burka) that has a knack for making the complex look simple, and 2) an app like Google+ that's just as important to their new core mission as Analytics was to their old one and also has similar room for improvement.

[inmygarage]

Two team-centric acquisitions that Google has made in recent years: Aardvark and Slide. Both were cases of products that were mostly ahead of their time or just-off re: product-market fit, and had genius teams. As far as I know, the majority of both teams are still at Google.

[bproper]

Max Levchin left Google and Aardvark was shut down.

Google had Foursquare in house (called Dodgeball) but couldn't execute.

Android is the best counter-example I can think of.

[joshu]

max levchin -> slide max ventilla -> aardvark

[cyen]

Very little of the Aardvark team is left at Google, and those who are are scattered across different teams.

[brown9-2]

What has become of the Slide properties that Google inherited? What do they do with Slide stuff now?

[webwright]

Andy Rubin and the Android team had a pretty big impact on Google.

[Drbble]

That was one of few acquisitions were Google actually wanted the product, and needed it badly. Mobile was Google's main growth area for years, until the social black hole opened last year or so.

[dpritchett]

Bret Taylor at Facebook.

[chollida1]

That's a good point. In his current role he is essentially the top technical person in the company.

I wonder if the reason alot of acquired entrepreneurs leave is that they are used to having so much authority and latitude that getting a middle manager role at google just feels like wearing a straight jacket.

[jpdoctor]

Thanks for the counterexample. Just to be clear: His vesting clock is done?

[nuggien]

He didn't exactly get picked up to be some random engineer in a big corp.

[brosephius]

Yep...why go through the normal interview process to work at Google when you can get acqui-hired, get paid the same, but get a million-dollar "signing bonus"?

[Drbble]

Milk was a rather quick flip, but if you consider a more average 4 year run to acquisition, and also consider the risk factor, isn't so much obviously better than just getting a job with Google salary and stock from the start.

[veguss]

Don't hate the player, hate the game my friend.

[veguss]

Well, keep on hating the player and miss all the action then.

Do remember when the bubble collapses, you will be hurt far more than the players who already made their millions and can weather the collapse.

[anon808]

why not hate both. everyone has a choice.

[PaulAnunda]

b/c if 99% of us were placed in that situation, we'd take the money

[mbesto]

So talented that they couldn't build a product that netted profit...

[joering2]

So I heard this hundred times before and while it feels like Google (in this example) is making mistake, perhaps the second bottom here is that they wanted to shut down a competitor (at some field) and the nice way of doing it is to acquire. Then Google won't care if they find themselves behind gold cage of Google or not. They may leave or whatever. I don't think dropping $30MM is a big problem for Google either. For me or you that may be a waste, for Google it is 1) drop in the ocean 2) cheap way to shut them down.

[Drbble]

0.1% of Google's capitalization just to knock out 15 people is not a sustainable strategy.

[Drbble]

Ack, no, it's 0.01% for 8 people. Slightly more sustainable than I thought.