zlacker

I was involved in an M&A once; my role was to evaluate the technology and determine how long it would take us to build a competitive product. If it was less than some X then we’d build it, greater than X and we’d buy. The function for X was not clear to me from my perspective; it had legal fees involved, etc.

The person leading M&A said an intangible aspect of the price is what it does to the adjacent market. If the leading product A is valued during a raise at $Y, and you buy the next best product B at 1/10 that, you cause future issues with raises for A.

Might this be an attempt to clip Cursors wings?

>>dayjah+(OP)
That's a really interesting thought, I'd love to get involved in software PE/M&A on the technical analysis side but I don't have the academic pedigree for it (it seems every shop that does this work is 90% Ivy and Ivy-adjacent universities and FAANG-level work history).

So if I'm understanding your point then part of the value in paying $3B for Windsurf is that it acts as a pricing anchor on future raises (and presumably acquisitions as well) for competing products? So Cursor is less likely to raise at a $30B valuation if Windsurf is 95% as good and just sold for 1/10 that.

>>dayjah+(OP)
I would also think that a critical component of X there would be the opportunity cost of time spent on building in-house while competition chugs along.

>>pc86+nb
The insanity of it all is that these companies are worth about $3M.

>>pc86+nb
You have superbly summarized the point I was trying to make regarding valuations.

Regarding your other point about pedigree: I’ve a high school level education. I was considered senior at this specific co. as I had played an important role in building the product (I’m a “classic case” of self taught generalist). I’m not at all clear on how I was selected to take part in that effort to be frank. It was fun.

>>foobar+JK
For sure, as was the opportunity cost of redirecting our engineering teams to produce the competing product. That is, slowing the roadmap on our core product to deliver a tangential product.

Also, we had to factor into account user management, infosec bring-up, streamlining deployment, cross training teams, etc.

This was a large co., there was generally the belief that everything can be copied relatively quickly to reach something like parity. Obviously, the discovered path has tons more learning in it that the copier doesn’t benefit from when making subsequent decisions, which can result in lots of time lost.