Silicon Valley: The Only Place Where Getting a New Job = “Acquisition”
Pownce, the microblogging service that tried to be a superior Twitter, is no more. The service, which was ironically “co-founded” by tweeting superstar Kevin Rose, will soon be turning out the lights.
Its assets (whatever those are) have been acquired by Six Apart and co-founders Leah Culver and Mike Malone will take jobs at Six Apart where they’ll bring their “vision to all of Six Apart’s products.”
Translation: Pownce failed. Thanks to our connections, somebody bought our “assets.” We now have new jobs.
Pownce demonstrates that in the small world of Silicon Valley, failed startups sometimes don’t simply die. Their usually non-existent “technology” is bought for a song and a dance as a sort of incentive to hire the team whose company failed.
It’s a somewhat peculiar ritual.
Usually, there’s no shame in having started a business that fails. Most new companies don’t take off but most people don’t even the guts to risk failure in the first place. Given this, as a Silicon Valley outsider, it seems that these acquisitions of failed startups for the “talent” are designed in part to “save face” for the founders even though there’s no reason to.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with starting a company, shutting it down or shelving it when it doesn’t go anywhere and going back to work for someone else. Say, “Pownce didn’t work out, we’re shutting it down and we’re joining Six Apart’s engineering team.” The story that “assets” are being sold to Six Apart and joining Six Apart is a sad farce in my opinion.
Finally, while I recognize the value of “talent,” let’s get real: it’s not like Six Apart has acquired two top executives or two of the world’s foremost software engineers. I don’t personally know Culver and Malone and they may very well be solid engineers but it’s not like they’re widely recognized as top engineering talent anywhere outside of the small circle jerk that is Web 2.0. And it’s not like they built anything world-changing with Pownce (results speak from themselves).
Bottom line: anytime a failed startup is “acquired” and the service is shut down, you don’t have an acquisition. You have a Silicon Valley signing bonus.
Thanks for the link my man… it will be interesting to see what happens with Leah’s star power now.
allen: no problem. I think perhaps her “star power” will be recognized for what it is. Hint: it’s not “star power.”
If anybody was paying attention in Bubble 1.0, there were no shortage of startups that were backed by real celebrities (MVP.com is one that immediately comes to mind). Star power didn’t help them so why would anyone expect “Kevin Rose” and “Leah Culver” to do any better?
Here’s a test for everyone: if you’re a male, go to a hot nightclub in a major city and tell the bouncer you’re not on the list but that you’re Kevin Rose. If you’re a female, tell the bouncer you’re Leah Culver.
Anyone want to bet on the outcome?
Sorry if it’s off-topic, but I’m suprised you didn’t blog about this yet:
http://snurl.com/73lx5
http://snurl.com/73lzz
And last but not least, Loren Feldman praising Kmart on video: http://www.1938media.com/kmart/
It’s like payperpost on meth. If this thing doesn’t make you wanna puke, i don’t know what will…
Let us know your thoughts.
btw, ted murphy and izea is behind this shame. anyone surprised?
@Steve Offset: What a scam! K-Mart could have just given people the vounchers themselves and saved the money instead of paying Ted Murphy to give his friends some free cash.
Nothin’ wrong with a signing bonus.
Steve - tomorrow I am going to kmart to film a video about my experience there - it won’t be paid by anyone - let’s see what it’s really like. I spoke with Ted at length about the program. While I like a few of the bloggers he’s paid, overall their posts are a joke.
Had Kmart wanted to do this right (or at least try) - they would have given the money to the bloggers to buy gifts for needy kids or people in the military overseas. But instead all they did was buy $6000 worth of paid text links.
What I’ve said is that I want to see these bloggers receipts from Kmart in January and February - clearly since they love the store, they will go back, right?
blogging is about delivering one’s own truthful opinion. that’s what drama 2.0 does, even with his sponsors.
these guys who signed up for this joke are nothing but prostitutes and lost my respect that very moment. but with feldman, it wasn’t so much of a surprise, given his ability to make friend with his once ennemies right after he’s publicly critisized them (Murphy, Le Meur, Arrington, Scobble etc…), as long as they pay him lunch or invite him. What’s next? Feldman sleeping over and paling around at Shel Israel’s?
Btw, was that what happened between Drama 2.0 and Gary Vaynerchuk? I hope not, because this very blog was what I thought being the last bit of blog integrity and self respect left on the web.
Steve: I don’t really have a problem with the K-Mart/Izea stuff. Everything was disclosed and frankly, I think K-Mart is the one that got the short end of the stick.
Look at it this way: Loren’s video was quite over the top. That’s his style. I was amused watching him spend K-Mart’s money knowing that it was a complete put-on.
As Allen says, most of the K-Mart posts are a joke. And the joke is on K-Mart.
It paid money for posts that everyone knows were only made to collect the gift cards. And the payments were disclosed.
Frankly, I’m far more concerned about conflicts of interest that aren’t disclosed than I am about a stupid company like K-Mart wasting its money on a “social media” marketing campaign that is really just a handout to bloggers that will do nothing for the company.
As for your comment about Vaynerchuk, as I mentioned in my second post on him, he sent me a nice email and invited me to chat over a beer. I don’t live in the US and am not going to accept a beer from a guy who owns a wine retailer so no meeting ever took place. I didn’t even respond to Vaynerchuk’s email (I meant to drop him a note but was traveling).
I call it how I see it. Vaynerchuk’s comments about Howard Stern were misinformed and asinine. His comments about picking up the phone and selling were valid. That’s all there is to it.
I frankly don’t understand Vaynerchuk’s “popularity” in the social media realm but c’est la vie. I’m not a “fan” of his and I don’t read his blog very much but he’s just like everyone else: sometimes he’ll be dead wrong and sometimes he might be right.
I’ll criticize (harshly) when criticism is deserved but I’m not so rigid that I can’t admit that somebody is right - whether or not I like them personally.
Hope that clears it all up.
You know she never actually mentioned Pownce being acqured only that the technology is moving to Six Apart… that could just mean technology as in “know how” in their heads.
So I think Leah was trying to be honest but at the same time spinning it positively. But as far as star talent, I think there’s a consensus that she’s just another average developer that got picked up by the web2.0 hype media.