> But it's a blatant, raw, undeniable failure when a company lets itself get acquired no matter how much money changes hands.
You mean that when Intel acquired Altera that was a failure, and when Microsoft acquired Mojang that was a failure too? And Google with Android and so on. All 'blatant, raw, undeniable failures' according to you.
Yes? "Failure" is a little harsh, but reasonably accurate. Even the companies that sell out "to ensure we have the resources to develop all our visionary synergies" have better ways to raise money.
The 'end' is but a moment and it's very well possible to have a success even if it ends in one way or another. Success is a measure of the total net effect a company had. if the net effect was negative then a company can be classed a failure, if the net effect was positive then the company was a success.
Selling out is to sell a company with the specific intent to shut it down, that's different.
Since we can't know the values of the founders of those companies I think that to say someone 'sold out' without giving them an opportunity to voice their position (and which they are not even obliged to state) it's a bit of a harsh judgment. Everybody is entitled to their own opinion of course but this 'failure' thing is another creative use of a word that has a different meaning in normal language. I have a problem with that. I do my very best to communicate and then people will start to use words in ways in which they definitely weren't intended.
Let's take Mojang as an example. Mojang was run for many years by the same people. Maybe they simply got tired of it and wanted to move on to other things. Having a significant chunk of money in the bank is generally considered to be a good thing and from what I see minecraft is still working just fine. I find it hard to square that deal with the meaning of the word 'failure'. That's just trying to be too clever for my taste I prefer a simpler and more direct interpretation of words, this cleverness is really rather tiresome.
It looks as if the whole thing is constructed in such a way that it a negative association is attached to the success of others in a way that says more about the user of the words than about the people and events that it is supposed to describe.
What if it's not about raising money? Sometimes it's about gaining access to markets, or to technology, or to other things that the acquiring company controls. How is it "failure" to gain access to those things, and money besides?
You mean that when Intel acquired Altera that was a failure, and when Microsoft acquired Mojang that was a failure too? And Google with Android and so on. All 'blatant, raw, undeniable failures' according to you.