An incredible journey is:
One company buying another and closing its services down. This is a
purchase of the second company’s staff, rather than their product. An
acquihire.
If you look through the archives this is what all the incredible
journeys have in common. A company gets bought, its staff are excited
(publicly, anyway) about their new home, but sorry that the service
which brought them to the attention of their new bosses will have to be
closed. “But thanks for joining us on our incredible journey!”
This is what is galling. A company that can afford to pay millions for
some new staff but not for what those staff built. The people who used
the service, and invested their belief and time in uploading photos, or
forming friendships, or logging data, are left to find new virtual homes
while their former hosts enjoy a nice (if possibly delayed) payday.
This repeated pattern only encourages more people to create flashy
services that have no hope of being sustainable businesses in their own
right, but may survive long enough, with VC funding, to attract the
attention of a large company eager for new ideas and staff.
It’s one thing for companies to go bust, or to close their service
after failing to make it work. This is business. It’s capitalism. But
starting services only to close them a couple of years later when payday
arrives is a vicious way to treat people.
