When Waze was acquired by Google, most of the people who know me did not believe I would last 7 weeks, let alone 7 years
When the web site I founded was acquired by Homestore.com, I lasted about 7 weeks. I wrote an email to the CEO of Homestore saying that I thought he was trying to make the company seem much more valuable than it was. I was immediately fired. He was eventually convicted of securities fraud and sentenced to prison.
I view Bardin’s tale as quite different. The way I see it, he went from a sub-Dunbar organization to a super-Dunbar organization. The latter needs many more formal processes and controls. As he puts it,
Working as an independent start-up is fundamentally different from a corporation and it is much more nuanced and deep than I had understood.
If you strongly prefer informal processes and fewer controls, stick with start-ups.
For me, Waze is still the gold standard, even with its outdated looking UI and sometimes annoying re-routing. How many times have Google or Apple Maps driven me completely bonkers while I’m trying to navigate an unfamiliar area with the wrong turns and strange routings?
I’m surprised to be saying this so many years after the Google acquisition. Despite Google’s assurances at the time, I thought for sure that they would grab the technology/features + the development team and let the rest of the platform RIP.
Although the World Bank rates the USA as a very easy place to do business and the USA ranking improved from 8 in 2019 to 6 on the World Bank 2020 Doing Business index, it is safe to assume that will be reversed in short order. The only question is how badly. More importantly for those thinking of starting a business, the USA ranks 55th in the world on the ease of business start up sub-index. Within that sub-index the USA ranking is weighed down by its 64th ranking on ease of getting electricity. Given the Biden’s highly successful war on affordable and reliable energy, anyone thinking of starting a business that requires electricity should look outside the USA. New business is by all accounts not welcome in Biden’s America, the cost of his pandering to the anti-populist elites’ irrational hatred of working people.
https://www.doingbusiness.org/content/dam/doingBusiness/country/u/united-states/USA.pdf