The cloud shooting itself on the foot: dispatch.io/.cc and do.com

Posted by Paul Korm
Oct 26, 2013 at 08:32 PM

This is what fuels firms such as Y Combinator and their peers. It is cheaper and offers more control for the money crowd to find small handsful of hungry (literally) young developers with product ideas and carrot-and-stick them into launching their little business, ripen them, and then sell or merge them. The buyers of these small businesses are frequently more interested in the skills that the small entrepreneurs developed with Y Combinator’s money, than the products. So, Y Combinator funds the skill building of the competent, shakes the losers out of the market, and then gets a tidy profit for their efforts. In this model, many if not most of the cloud-based upstarts are really just journeymen indentured to the VC who then sell forward the indenture after the journeyman creates the masterwork that proves their skillfulness. It’s not the masterwork that matters—it is the workman. (Or woman—no gender slights intended here.)

22111 wrote:
“For Dispatch’s founders, the acquisition by Meetup is considered
>success—and maybe it is in the short term.”
> >What you didn’t grasp is the fact that THAT had been their business
>model from start on, to be bought.
>