SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
from the good-business-or-something-else dept.
https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2018/06/01/microsoft--github-acquisition-talks-resume.html
Microsoft held talks in the past few weeks to acquire software developer platform GitHub, Business Insider reports.
One person familiar with the discussions between the companies told CNBC that they had been considering a joint marketing partnership valued around $35 million, and that those discussions had progressed to a possible investment or outright acquisition. It is unclear whether talks are still ongoing, but this person said that GitHub's price for a full acquisition was more than Microsoft currently wanted to pay.
GitHub was last valued at $2 billion in its last funding round 2015, but the price tag for an acquisition could be $5 billion or more, based on a price that was floated last year.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by VLM on Saturday June 02 2018, @02:48PM (2 children)
I remember reading their semi-leaked possibly even true, financials around 2016 and their revenues and burn rate were accelerating indicting a wall would be hit around 2018-ish timeframe.
So here we are. Get bought, get more investment money, something. Not quite April of 2000 yet, but eventually the VCs want some return on the investment, so if the VCs are tired of lighting money on fire, and the company doesn't want to simply close, they're gonna have to get bought.
Noticing the impressive burn rate, and comparing my financials in 2016 to today, I can't think of anything new they've done I'd want to pay for in that interval, thats kinda a problem for an older startup like github, the growth in what people want and use happens very early, while the suits are hoping for an equally insane growth rate at the end. That kinda summarizes the struggle of VC startups; the business model demands the growth rate be constant if not increasing, but natural engineering constraints mean the growth rate always decreases eventually to zero if not negative, so the longer a startup goes without getting bought, the more likely it'll get flushed instead of bought.
Not to mention, gitlab is simply better. Why pay more for github when you'd get something better cheaper if you used (or bought) gitlab. Certainly I'd never use github other than the residual popularity and culture (kinda like using myspace in 2010 because there are still eyeballs there even if its not the best anymore). Thats the natural startup race to the bottom, which also causes a hyperinflation in new startup perceived values.
I could make an interesting analogy between startups and women and marriage... Github is almost at the wall about to become the financial equivalent of a cat lady, somebody gotta wife up github real soon before her market value drops to about zero.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 02 2018, @03:04PM (1 child)
They have moved office to 365 (cloud). They are also one of the largest cloud providers. That is where their burn rate is going. From what I see it is working.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by frojack on Saturday June 02 2018, @05:27PM
I thought GP was talking about Github's burn rate.
Office in Cloud vs libre office. No brainier.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.