Re:Getting VC was a mistake (Score 2)

Greedy? Not necessarily. More like 'over ambitious' perhaps. The founders of aD always said that they hoped to build a company that was as important in web applications as SAP was in ERD (over 10 years or so). I think they saw a way of accelerating this. PG and the others were always very sceptical of VCs (we don't need VCs, we have revenue they always used to say) but in the heady days of late 99 early 2000 even they got caught up in the hype. Saw a chance to get Big and Important more quickly (while remaining 100% Open Source, and fully committed to all the other stuff, training, pro-bono work etc.), took it, and then I think almost immediately regretted it. I guess they thought they could control the beast as long as they still had a majority shareholding between them. Looks like, at the end of the day, the shareholder agreements they signed may have done for them. Long spoons all round ... Still there is the option that PG, the founders, and all the best programmers could quit, set up aD2 (or whichever venture most gets their juices going) and give the VCs the proverbial finger. Might lose their stock in aD but that's not looking like such a big loss right now, and I'd reckon they'd be on better legal ground this way than by trying to retake control of aD. At least a couple of the big clients would be tempted to go with them. Phil Greenspun == Jerry MacGuire?