I wish they had managed to keep Arc around. It's a product I'd glad pay for, and it seems like maybe there are enough fans that subscriptions could've supported a smaller team. Hopefully Atlassian doesn't kill it after 5 months
Was this not predictable from day one? There's no money in making a web browser. That ought to be obvious to anyone, let alone a superstar CEO. That they would end up selling the company seemed like a foregone conclusion.
I don't mean to disrespect the guy but I don't see much to credit here either. He had a problem, used VC cash to ignore it, then sold the company. Hardly uncommon in the tech world.
They built a product that many people liked. That's part of why so many people are angry about shutting down Arc. How does one tell during the rapid growth phase that things will level off and that actually even though a lot of people will like your product it won’t be enough to be a mass market success? They took a big swing, and they got a lot further than I thought they would.
And it seems like maybe he managed to swing an okay outcome for investors and hopefully employees too.
Edited:
> Was this not predictable from day one? There's no money in making a web browser.
And to this point, before Google no one had cracked monetizing search. Before Facebook, no one had monetized social. No one had monetized online video before Youtube... this is what start ups do... they make people like and figure out how to monetize it