10+ hours of podcasts, in 5 minutes.
4 quotes from 3 episodes on 20VC with Harry Stebbings, each with a timestamped link to the source.
Jason Lemkin questions the ethics of selling healthy software startups to private equity buyers who immediately slash the workforce. Founders of growing, cash-flow positive companies face choices beyond accepting bids from firms that cut 80% of staff within weeks.
One executive laid off 20% of staff in a single day, beat quarterly estimates, and saw the stock price rise 80% that year.
“Matthew just came in and said I'm laying off 20% of the team. Just doing it. He did in one day and they beat the quarter. They accelerated growth even more. The stock price is up like 80% this year.”
Jason Lemkin ties the overall health of the technology market directly to the continuous success of NVIDIA.
“…broadly speaking, if Nvidia is crushing it, everyone's going to crush it. Like, everything's green.”
Jason Lemkin asks if founders of growing, cash-flow positive startups hold a moral obligation to protect employees from gut-and-run acquirers. Private equity buyers like Bending Spoons often cut 80% of headcount immediately after a sale.
“Do you have any moral obligation to sell to someone that's going to lay off 80% of your team within weeks? They are stakeholders, especially if you're cash flow positive and growing.”
“…the shocker to me with air table wasn't the price because I think it's low market the shocker to me is no one else stepped up no PE firm no Tommo bravo no Vista.”
From AirTable's $11B to $1.285B Sale: What SaaS Founders Missed
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