Isn’t that a prerequisite for enshitification? Publicly-traded companies are required (by law, I think) to maximize profits for their shareholders, even if that means utterly ruining their original product (Reddit, Boeing, etc.), yes? What do you think?
The company I work for has acquired a number of small companies over the years; the result has been a mixed bag. In one case, the original product and employees were dropped completely, only retaining the IP. In a number of other cases, the original teams and products were kept intact with cross-over between products plus a huge boost in funding and customers over the years. In most cases, the companies were absorbed into existing management structures and the employees and technologies deployed inside the existing product line, sometimes with a few things that didn’t match the company strategy sold off or spun off into their own company.
Personally, I consider all the acquisitions except the single case where everything was abandoned to be a success; in that case, the exec in charge of acquisition was made redundant when everything else shut down.
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The company I work for has acquired a number of small companies over the years; the result has been a mixed bag. In one case, the original product and employees were dropped completely, only retaining the IP. In a number of other cases, the original teams and products were kept intact with cross-over between products plus a huge boost in funding and customers over the years. In most cases, the companies were absorbed into existing management structures and the employees and technologies deployed inside the existing product line, sometimes with a few things that didn’t match the company strategy sold off or spun off into their own company.
Personally, I consider all the acquisitions except the single case where everything was abandoned to be a success; in that case, the exec in charge of acquisition was made redundant when everything else shut down.