It helps to have founded and run a company if you're going to help somebody run a company who is a founder. - Ben Horowitz

For the purpose of this discussion, it is useful to think about technology acquisitions in three categories: 1. Talent and/or technology, when a company is acquired purely for its technology and/or its people. These kinds of deals typically range between $5 million and $50 million. 2. Product, when a company is acquired for its product, but not its business. The acquirer plans to sell the product roughly as it is, but will do so primarily with its own sales and marketing capability. These kinds of deals typically range between $25 million and $250 million. 3. Business, when a company is acquired for its actual business (revenue and earnings). The acquirer values the entire operation (product, sales, and marketing), not just the people, technology, or products. These deals are typically valued (at least in part) by their financial metrics and can be extremely large (such as Microsoft’s $30 billion–plus offer for Yahoo).

In good organizations, people can focus on their work and have confidence that if they get their work done, good things will happen for both the company and them personally. It is a true pleasure to work in an organization such as this. Every person can wake up knowing that the work they do will be efficient, effective, and make a difference for the organization and themselves. These things make their jobs both motivating and fulfilling.
“In a poor organization, on the other hand, people spend much of their time fighting organizational boundaries, infighting, and broken processes. They are not even clear on what their jobs are, so there is no way to know if they are getting the job done or not. In the miracle case that they work ridiculous hours and get the job done, they have no idea what it means for the company or their careers. To make it all much worse and rub salt in the wound, when they finally work up the courage to tell management how fucked-up their situation is, management denies there is a problem, then defends the status quo, then ignores the problem.

You fucking want to know what I think about Opsware? I think it’s the biggest goddamn piece of shit! All I hear about all day is how much this product fucking sucks. I’m going to do everything I can to get you guys thrown out of here.