This is an interesting and unusual meditation, a slice of Valley life. I’m rather surprised it made it to the light of day.
It’s about the author’s (John Flowers) attempts to negotiate a sale of his answer/search company, Kozoru. From a portion of it:
Still, there’s something about people laying around on beanbag chairs and staring at huge, well-projected screens and talking with one another over Naked juice and Odwalla that one finds a little unsettling. Google is also nestled snugly into the old Silicon Graphics campus, which – if you’ve ever been there – adds to the otherworldly vibe one gets while tromping between buildings, through open-sand volleyball courts and around the ten-kinds-of-free-meal cafeteria they’ve created.
Everything we saw and heard and felt seemed like we were getting along great with everyone there. Everything, that is, until three weeks ago when – without warning – they stopped responding to e-mails or returning phone calls. They did, however, take the opportunity to log into our private interface and see what we were doing (after we shared it with them), even after the calls stopped and the radio silence continued.
I’d remove their access, but I like Megan and company and assume… some day… they might actually call back saying something like, “This is really cool.”
..
I’m wondering if this kind of behavior (the not calling back part of it) is standard operating procedure for the Gubble, as I’ve heard more than one person say, “They threw out a tentative offer, about $1MM per engineer, and we didn’t fall to their feet and we never heard back from them.”….
…Until then, I’d appreciate at least a courtesy call, folks. I mean, seriously.