I don't normally do this, but I'm replying to my own post, because I think it's fucking brilliant.
There's so much hand-wringing about the sparrow acquisition, and there are many words and few to the point. My first line, "Google beat us, and Sparrow let them," gets to the heart of it, with, I'd argue, the fewest possible words.
Any argument that involves the word "should" should be ascribed an extra helping of skepticism. What does "should" even mean? At it's heart, it's an expression of what we'd prefer. That is, it's an expression of preference. But it's a preference given the patina of: "truth, justice, and the American way". "Should" is a dirty word.
The connection between "should" and "regulation" is an important one. We connect these when we believe that a behavior requires the brutality of force behind it. The behavior is so important that we cannot accept an exception. There are some, but very few, such cases of valid "shoulds".
Hence the auction idea. And this auction idea is more of a brand, or a label, that can be applied to any startup. And the only reason why it wouldn't work is that the market is too small for the brand, that there aren't enough people for whom that brand would make much sense. And yet, a "startup compatible" brand makes sense to me, and I think the argument could be made cogently to others, such that a startup without such a guarantee of the option of longevity would suffer compared to those that have it.
And so a novel business model is born. I am proposing a company who's customers are software startups that offers a guarantee along the lines of a buyout auction. If the startup is the target of an acquisition, the users will be given the right of first refusal.
There's so much hand-wringing about the sparrow acquisition, and there are many words and few to the point. My first line, "Google beat us, and Sparrow let them," gets to the heart of it, with, I'd argue, the fewest possible words.
Any argument that involves the word "should" should be ascribed an extra helping of skepticism. What does "should" even mean? At it's heart, it's an expression of what we'd prefer. That is, it's an expression of preference. But it's a preference given the patina of: "truth, justice, and the American way". "Should" is a dirty word.
The connection between "should" and "regulation" is an important one. We connect these when we believe that a behavior requires the brutality of force behind it. The behavior is so important that we cannot accept an exception. There are some, but very few, such cases of valid "shoulds".
Hence the auction idea. And this auction idea is more of a brand, or a label, that can be applied to any startup. And the only reason why it wouldn't work is that the market is too small for the brand, that there aren't enough people for whom that brand would make much sense. And yet, a "startup compatible" brand makes sense to me, and I think the argument could be made cogently to others, such that a startup without such a guarantee of the option of longevity would suffer compared to those that have it.
And so a novel business model is born. I am proposing a company who's customers are software startups that offers a guarantee along the lines of a buyout auction. If the startup is the target of an acquisition, the users will be given the right of first refusal.
Fund me, pg.