Can anyone guess how much Mint's founder will walk away with? (from crunchbase it looks like they took about $30M in funding and sold for $170M)
I've always figured $10M was walk away (from life) money. ($2M to buy a decent house - $8M to invest so that even with a modest return of 5% you'd still be making about $400K a year)
I'd say that's a great 2 years of work, I don't need Google Money and I'd be fine with that.
5% isn't as modest as you think once you take into account inflation and taxes, and the fact that the stock market isn't going to magically go up 10% every year (as many people erroneously assume). Living off of 2% of your assets is a safer and more sustainable assumption.
Would you really be gaining 8% per year? I'm not sure how returns work when you're talking about millions of dollars. I assume you are going to leave 3% behind per year for inflation. Just to be safe, I'd rather say you take 3% out each year which would still be $240k, so it's still a lot.
I agree with this assessment of the situation. I still think that what 37signals is doing is way more interesting (not just their business, but their blog, and the community they're leading), but who am I to criticize either of their careers? They've both had success beyond my wildest dreams.
37signals is doing what they like to do . . . and Mint is completely justified in doing what they chose to do.
Once a company grows to a certain size, things change. Some entrepreneurs can grow with the change. Some can't or don't want to. Running "a big company" is different than launching a startup and requires a different set of skills and attitudes.
why is what 37 signals does cooler? what do they do? they sell software and have slowly scaled, they aren't trying to go public or take over the world. They aren't even that innovative on the web.
there are probably hundreds of companies in an almost identical situation.
The article says "After busting your butt for two years on a startup salary -- and suddenly you have the chance to become a rich hotshot with a big job in a big company -- wouldn't you?"
I'm assuming that some/many entrepreneurs would rather work on their startups instead of working in "a big job in a big company".
I'm not necessarily suggesting that one is better than the other or commenting on Mint in particular, but I think that the reporter is mistaken in his assumption that people would always choose a big job in a big company.
His deal seems particularly attractive given this new information. One can imagine that he has been working 100-120 hour weeks, has no external life. Now he has buckage, gets to continue doing what he did over the last two years, and gets to run something similar. Given that he still gets to work on his startup, what is not to like?
After the acquisition closes, the Mint.com team will be leading the development of both Mint.com and Intuit’s existing personal finance products, Quicken desktop and Quicken Online. The fact that Intuit has agreed to acquire Mint.com, and is leaving our team intact, is evidence that Intuit has been impressed by and wants to build upon the user experience that Mint.com offers. We’ll not only improve upon that experience for Mint.com but also bring our know-how to the Quicken product line. Destroying the Mint.com user experience does not make sense for Intuit, Mint.com or any of our users.
Leaders of large companies often understand that they need to bring in outside influence and new ideas to remain competitive; that's a good part of why they make acquisitions after all.
The issue is - and you'll understand this if you've ever been acquired or have have tried to innovate in a large organization - that large companies are not run by their C-Suite Executives.
Large Companies are run by their internal cultures, bureaucracies and departments; often there are several separate instances of these things too. Like all cultures, they are resistant to being changed unless that change comes from within.
Given that, acquired companies tend to be mis-matched in trying to contribute what they know. Even if some of the company listens, there are many areas that aren't interested in what they have to say.
The best thing that could ever be hoped for in an acquisition is that the acquired company is run as an independent subsidiary, simply required to funnel money to to parent company. Any time the two companies are asked to merge in any real way, the result is inevitably, regardless of how it is done, the loss of the bought entities ideals, culture and business practices is inevitable.
"37signals' Fried, by the way, is a rare case in the Internet industry, in that 37signals has never had to raise a significant amount of venture capital."
That statement really shows how ignorant the business press is of the reality of business on the web. The vast majority of web companies never raise money. They are not glamorous, are not written about on the blogs every day, and many are very small, but some of them do become very large businesses as well.
I'm surprised Mint was successful at all, given that you have to give them your financial account login ids and passwords to use their system. Storing such data centrally seems like a big risk to me.
They don't store it themselves; they use Yodlee to actually store everything, and Yodlee is the one that actually has done all the work (and it's a huge undertaking) to keep everything secure.
[+] [-] mikeryan|16 years ago|reply
I've always figured $10M was walk away (from life) money. ($2M to buy a decent house - $8M to invest so that even with a modest return of 5% you'd still be making about $400K a year)
I'd say that's a great 2 years of work, I don't need Google Money and I'd be fine with that.
[+] [-] paul|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hyperbovine|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] byoung2|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] skinnymuch|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] benatkin|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] symesc|16 years ago|reply
Once a company grows to a certain size, things change. Some entrepreneurs can grow with the change. Some can't or don't want to. Running "a big company" is different than launching a startup and requires a different set of skills and attitudes.
Neither is wrong/better.
[+] [-] pclark|16 years ago|reply
there are probably hundreds of companies in an almost identical situation.
[+] [-] credo|16 years ago|reply
I'm assuming that some/many entrepreneurs would rather work on their startups instead of working in "a big job in a big company". I'm not necessarily suggesting that one is better than the other or commenting on Mint in particular, but I think that the reporter is mistaken in his assumption that people would always choose a big job in a big company.
[+] [-] wglb|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] philwelch|16 years ago|reply
http://www.mint.com/blog/updates/why-mint-com-plus-intuit-is...
Of importance:
After the acquisition closes, the Mint.com team will be leading the development of both Mint.com and Intuit’s existing personal finance products, Quicken desktop and Quicken Online. The fact that Intuit has agreed to acquire Mint.com, and is leaving our team intact, is evidence that Intuit has been impressed by and wants to build upon the user experience that Mint.com offers. We’ll not only improve upon that experience for Mint.com but also bring our know-how to the Quicken product line. Destroying the Mint.com user experience does not make sense for Intuit, Mint.com or any of our users.
[+] [-] run4yourlives|16 years ago|reply
The issue is - and you'll understand this if you've ever been acquired or have have tried to innovate in a large organization - that large companies are not run by their C-Suite Executives.
Large Companies are run by their internal cultures, bureaucracies and departments; often there are several separate instances of these things too. Like all cultures, they are resistant to being changed unless that change comes from within.
Given that, acquired companies tend to be mis-matched in trying to contribute what they know. Even if some of the company listens, there are many areas that aren't interested in what they have to say.
The best thing that could ever be hoped for in an acquisition is that the acquired company is run as an independent subsidiary, simply required to funnel money to to parent company. Any time the two companies are asked to merge in any real way, the result is inevitably, regardless of how it is done, the loss of the bought entities ideals, culture and business practices is inevitable.
[+] [-] jacquesm|16 years ago|reply
I'll believe it when two years have passed and Intuit has indeed seen the wisdom of leaving the team in-tact and giving them free reign.
[+] [-] MaysonL|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jwesley|16 years ago|reply
That statement really shows how ignorant the business press is of the reality of business on the web. The vast majority of web companies never raise money. They are not glamorous, are not written about on the blogs every day, and many are very small, but some of them do become very large businesses as well.
[+] [-] jhatcom|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] akeefer|16 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imgabe|16 years ago|reply