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Tuco

I got Tuco'd!
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Because money now is better than money later for the board. They don't care about the product or the company or the employees. A lot of times they're just brought on to be part of the little club and were never actually part of the company or product.

The same thing happened to my giant healthcare IT company. After the founder died the board (none of whom lived near the world HQ, just completely separated from the company) did everything it could to make it look better for buyers. Eventually one of the biggest tech companies on the planet bought it and gutted it even more (without regard for actual merit or business purpose) and now they wonder why no one's around who knows what the fuck is going on. The CEO who was hired after the founder's death did hardly anything and walked away with at least 50 million after the sale. I'm sure the board got a ton as well as the stock price markup for the sale was something like 20-25%.
That's how most companies are treated in a nutshell the last 10 years unless you're a massive corporation. An investment group buys you up, gets rid of as many people as possible, cuts corners, drives up company's value and sells to someone else who then realizes it was all smoke and mirrors and now they have a major issue on their hands. I've seen this happen a dozen times at least.

marx-marxism.gif


I guess the thing I (as a layman) don't understand is how buyers are fooled by the smoke and mirrors.
 

kinadin

<Gold Donor>
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marx-marxism.gif


I guess the thing I (as a layman) don't understand is how buyers are fooled by the smoke and mirrors.
If you're talking about investment companies then that's because you can legally do a few things that pump up valuation in the short term and play off the long-term detrimental effects by claiming the shady stuff you're doing is legitimate and improving the company bottom line. This is why most people who understand finance look at the statement of cash flows instead of the income statement first. The way companies manage cash flows is much more important than the potential net income.

If you've ever listened to an earnings call then you should have picked up that certain analysts are more intelligent than others when asking questions. You can often find this disconnect with financial journalists - 99% of them are complete idiots and most don't even have a real background in finance. This is why you'll often find less known capital asset management firms being much more aggressive and assertive with their valuation opinions compared to someone from Goldman.

If you're talking about normal people as investors, then that's because most people don't understand basic finance and will never read a prospectus, 10-K, or any financial documents prior to investing. They just look at the charts and graphs on Yahoo Finance and think everything looks good.
 

DickTrickle

Definitely NOT Furor Planedefiler
13,403
15,563
I think he was talking about when big companies buy other companies and realize it was all polished up to look good.

The reality there is that a lot of actions taken to make a company look nice (large layoffs, support reduction, front loading contracts) don't have consequences that immediately occur. It's a long term pain and the people looking to buy are often still focused on the short term. They see these polished up financials and not the actual inner workings of the business.

My company that was bought has a huge footprint in healthcare IT and one of the main theories as to why it was bought by the larger company was to bolster its cloud services footprint. What they didn't realize is that from the layoffs before the acquisition and layoffs after as well as 10-20 year old legacy code, it's fucking way harder to make the move from existing cloud platforms and physical on site locations (in the thousands) than they thought, not to mention all the regulations surrounding health information and the burdensome government contracts.
 

Captain Suave

Caesar si viveret, ad remum dareris.
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I think he was talking about when big companies buy other companies and realize it was all polished up to look good.

It's also common that the objective of the acquisition isn't really to operate the smaller company on its existing trajectory as much as it is to bring technology, IP, employees, customers, or other resources that can be integrated into the mothership. A friend of mine founded a company that was bought by Cisco and they immediately folded up his operation and had him consult internally to rework other services in their development pipeline.
 
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Bandwagon

Kolohe
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I can't understand why these indie peasants are revolting, this is no worse than Tesla suddenly announcing that the car you bought last year now costs $1200 a month plus an extra $500 for everyone that sits in it at any point.
....what? That's a thing?
 
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Tuco

I got Tuco'd!
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Morons.


I like how they made the guy who probably had nothing to do with the pricing changes and is popular in the community come out and apologize for the company.
 
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Ambiturner

Ssraeszha Raider
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No more install-fee anymore or whatever it was?

Looks like it's only if they choose to use a newer version of unity released in 2024 and even then they'll have the option of the price per install or flat 2.5% of revenue
 
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Hatorade

A nice asshole.
8,450
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Still a massive fuck up, no one with half a brain is going to start making a game on unity now.
 
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Daidraco

Avatar of War Slayer
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Ive always felt like its awful weird how the US Government went after Microsoft for being a monopoly all those years ago - controlling options to what browser is able to be used etc. on the Windows platform. But yet, Apple and Google actively limit their unbroken phones to just their own App stores and dont allow/give any other options. Another App store could come in and undercut Apple by 20% and they'd still be at what.. 55 cents on the dollar, average, or something? Insanity.
 
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Mist

REEEEeyore
<Gold Donor>
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Ive always felt like its awful weird how the US Government went after Microsoft for being a monopoly all those years ago - controlling options to what browser is able to be used etc. on the Windows platform. But yet, Apple and Google actively limit their unbroken phones to just their own App stores and dont allow/give any other options. Another App store could come in and undercut Apple by 20% and they'd still be at what.. 55 cents on the dollar, average, or something? Insanity.
Android can have other app stores. Amazon has an app store for Android. Google is under antitrust investigation. Apple keeps skirting regulation due to trying to claim they're a luxury good and the walled-garden is part of the luxury brand. It's quite a bullshit argument and I can't believe anyone keeps falling for it.
 
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...

Goonsquad Officer
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Ive always felt like its awful weird how the US Government went after Microsoft for being a monopoly all those years ago - controlling options to what browser is able to be used etc. on the Windows platform. But yet, Apple and Google actively limit their unbroken phones to just their own App stores and dont allow/give any other options. Another App store could come in and undercut Apple by 20% and they'd still be at what.. 55 cents on the dollar, average, or something? Insanity.
the cia hadn't infiltrated microsoft as badly as they're in google and apple.
 
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Lanx

<Prior Amod>
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Android can have other app stores. Amazon has an app store for Android. Google is under antitrust investigation. Apple keeps skirting regulation due to trying to claim they're a luxury good and the walled-garden is part of the luxury brand. It's quite a bullshit argument and I can't believe anyone keeps falling for it.
lulz, have you ever used fire app store?

using it for 30s not finding any app you'd regularly use and you google

and yes, while you can just download an apk... half the time it won't work b/c it'll require google play services

unless youre just pirating games
 

mkopec

<Gold Donor>
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ITs called kickbacks, guys. There is a reason why our lawmakers dont go after these crooks. ever wonder why our lawmakers and career politicians making $180K per year are mostly all multi millionaires?
 
  • 3Truth!
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