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Re: 37signals Takes Investment from Jeff Bezos – Sellout?

Jamie Ontiveros — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 23:10:16 -0000

I think that you are on to something when you say S3. The joyent crew seem to be leveraging themselves on Solaris/ZFS/Grid computing. These will be two great competing platforms!

Re: 37signals Takes Investment from Jeff Bezos – Sellout?

Hooman Radfar — Sun, 23 Jul 2006 19:51:49 -0000

I guess 37Signals is regretting bashing folks that take outside funding, aren't they. I have one thing to say - S3, S3, S3. Best of luck to them, either way. :)

Re: 37signals Takes Investment from Jeff Bezos – Sellout?

Jeff B — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 06:55:04 -0000

Isn't Amazon successful because it had the deepest pockets for the longest period until they were one of the few left standing and could finally turn a profit.

Does that make JB a great business mind?

Look how many dotcom people got their timing right and have tried other projects that have failed.

I suppose getting it right once takes some measure of business brains, I'm just not convinced that these 'web' success stories are a true measure of business brains.

I could be wrong......I was once, but that was back in 1965.

Jeff B

Re: 37signals Takes Investment from Jeff Bezos – Sellout?

NOT a 37 Signals Fan — Fri, 21 Jul 2006 02:49:12 -0000

As you can tell by my website, I'm definitely not a fan of 37 Signals; I've rarely come across a more pompous group of individuals in my life. Hopefully Jeff will teach them some perspective and some manners.

Re: 37signals Takes Investment from Jeff Bezos – Sellout?

David G — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 21:43:52 -0000

Either you need the money, or you are cashing in (which is fine by me) - the signals claim not to need the money - they can't claim to be investing in product becasue that would be un-signal-like.

Before 37signals, a small team in seattle called robotcoop also played by their own rules & built simple, sticky, social web tools about achieving your goals and seeing the world. Then, Bezos invested and the robots launched allconsuming.net - a site dedicated to buying stuff - and helping friends buy stuff - on amazon - 'round that time, their other sites lost traction - & now in the myspace noise, it seems clear that 43things & 43places wont fulfill their potential.

Lets hope that the next product from 37signals is not "shop-pa-list" - if it is, expect mediocrity from there on out.

This investment is obviously a no-brainer. I salute amazon's biz-dev team for saying what the signals needed to hear & naming the right price - it must have been a competitive deal. But seriously, any "synergies" the signals see are imagined (& well sold).

Bezos also had a piece of the del.icio.us action - come a long way since pets.com? His online store sure could use some of that focus though.

Re: 37signals Takes Investment from Jeff Bezos – Sellout?

Aidan Henry — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 19:47:48 -0000

I think it's a smart move by Bezos and a mediocre decision by 37Signals.

My guess is that the company will get bought over in the near-term by a larger software firm looking to capitalize on 37Signal's simple, clean web apps.

This would provide a great short-term ROI for Bezos who obviously understands business.

Re: 37signals Takes Investment from Jeff Bezos – Sellout?

blebla — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 19:10:10 -0000

Hey Pete, Blebla here again.

Nope, you are correct in guessing that my e-mail is not real. I don't believe in e-mail. So I posted twice, sorry, I had a few pages open and wasn't sure if I had posted a comment in reply to a way-old post. I figured you'd see it and answer if the comment was associated with the newest post.

I appreciate your answer and I do like your blog, although as you know I am skeptical of most of these little weekend projects (and they are weekend projects to any experienced developer, for the most part there is absolutely nothing new here). Although Flickr, that web 2.0 desktop thing and a small handful of the better web2.0 projects are genuinely cool. Is your weblist incomplete? Why isn't Moqvo in there? Is that because it's not really web 2.0? I tried to find it with your search engine too and came up with nothing. Thanks again!

Re: 37signals Takes Investment from Jeff Bezos – Sellout?

Pete Cashmore — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 19:00:05 -0000

blebla,

The reason I deleted your comment is because I already answered it when you asked the first time, over on the Shout Central post. I would have sent you an email, but I assume the email address you provided isn't real.

The company you're looking for is Moqvo.

Re: 37signals Takes Investment from Jeff Bezos – Sellout?

blebla — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 18:58:01 -0000

That sucks, you deleted my question :( Can you at least answer me somehow? I've tried searching in every possible way and I've been through your entire weblist.

Re: 37signals Takes Investment from Jeff Bezos – Sellout?

Jimmy — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 17:43:14 -0000

A very good initial assessment. At first I was like... what? why ask why? Then your explanation was all thought out... and it was good.

That didn't come out as intelligent as I intended, but I'll leave it there for what it's worth. :)