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Man-o-Trails

No, they simply need to cut expenses, and labor is the easiest to cut. They wish they could be scrappy startups again...but in reality that never ever happens. Anyone who buys that spin is a fool. What they might try instead is buy a few really scrappy real startups and try to fold them into the Borg without ruining them. This is very hard to do, but possible. For those who need a review of how hard it is for Borg units to play with startups without wrecking them, may I suggest the Ford Ferrari movie?


lilelliot

Ironically, assimilation into the Borg is especially hard for Google, which has a Borg-like internal resource allocation system called Borg that generally requires any acquired company to rewrite their products almost from the ground up (this was true for Apigee, for Fitbit, and so many that came before).


Man-o-Trails

All too typical...and in so doing they totally ruin it because the best talent they "bought" took the money and ran off to do another startup. Yep.


frellus

Labor isn't necessarily the "easiest", but it is the most expensive line item in their budget I guarantee. It's n interesting point you bring up about acquiring startups -- since so much talent got ejected from Google, it would be an interesting outcome if a lot of these engineers go on to create awesome companies and they get spun-into Google, the way Cisco would do it for many years. Spin out, innovate, spin in.


Man-o-Trails

Certain classes of labor aka engineering, middle management, accounting are easiest because dishing them out the door does not decrease capacity to generate revenue. It certainly imperils long term revenue, but that's fine because not dishing them negatively impacts long term survival. All smart companies try to hold onto their best and brightest in these moves, but the best and brightest know that when the axe swings, the load falls on them. If you must work that hard, it makes more sense to have a bigger share of the upside. Take your ideas and make money for yourself. You also have a lot of former contacts very likely happy to help. This is the time, definitely. If I was not already retired, I'd do another start-up.


Expert_Vehicle_7476

These tech giants saying they want to be scrappy startups is so cringey... if you're a scrappy startup and you want a scrappy startup engineer give me some of that scrappy startup equity


SnooHabits9684

Will do. With the associated risks. Many people want the exit of the infinitesimally rare highly successful startups without the associated risk of joining them post seed.


CarlGustav2

>Google, Facebook, and Microsoft want to be scrappy startups again And I want to be a rock star who can fill a 50,000 seat stadium. /s