[harry2quinn]

This feels like a pattern of grammarly becoming a holdco / following the Salesforce playbook. Find companies with - solid but not breakout growth (and probably slowing) - a loyal cult following - raised at too high a valuation in the peak era - talented teams - still founder led by strong product thinkers

Salesforce did this with Quip, Slack, etc.

[toomuchtodo]

It's not a bad play, like PE rollups but arguably with more potential for success from a "founder/startup friendly" perspective. PE, historically, is very good at stripping/optimizing/etc (think Bending Spoons), but I think there is magic in startups PE simply does not have that allows for a different, yet more successful, outcome (growing vs cutting your way to financial success).

We should see more of this as large, profitable startups have grown into long term private companies with no need to go public.

[chii]

> large, profitable startups have grown into long term private companies with no need to go public

which i think is a real problem - it prevents "mom and dad" investors from partaking in the wealth creation process, as they are not sophisticated investors and thus barred from being able to invest in these PE investments.

Public listing has become a cashing out operation, rather than a fund-raising operation, if this continues to happen more and more. And the public becomes the bag holders.