zlacker

That is the main takeaway from all these. The lesson is not that venture capital ruined it. But that eventually, at some point, either the founder or circumstances change the thing. The one permanent here is that it's bit on a digital network. By definition not permanent. And so people run into this again and again and still don't believe that XYZ might be next.

But it is, XYZ is their business platform, their social media network, their journals, their photo hoster, their "lifetime membership", etc. I ran into this all the time with clients. They would worry about what happens to their consultant, but never to their infrastructure.

So for businesses: have a plan B, and have usable archives / backups. And for individuals, have a plan B, and have usable archives / backups.