Once you’ve been a VP at a BigCo … you realize … it’s not worth it. Not usually.
First, if it’s at all a talent acquisition — you want to keep the talent, not let it go.
Second, it’s a distraction.
Third, a write-off is a write-off. Writing off $90m of a $100m acquisition in one fell swoop is a lot easier than sell it for $10m, write off $90m, and deal with months of de-integration issues, support agreements, and all that. Wall Street isn’t going to care if you write off $90m instead of $100m.
Just like buying something is easy … so is shutting something down. It’s “easier” than gracefully transitioning it to a new home.
Great post. Makes a lot of sense. But what if you’re thinking, geez that was a great app. Would love for someone else to have taken that over and run with it. Would it be feasible for someone to clone it – or are there dangers of Dropbox getting their lawyers after you? There’s a few companies that have acquired and then dropped products. Sure it made sense from their perspective to do this, but the world loses a lot of great products in this way. Perhaps a different approach to creating a startup? Take the ideas others throw out?