Discord
Folks getting antsy about the Discord IPO: isn't an IPO the happy ending, compared to a buyout? With an IPO, Discord retains its own leadership and can pursue its own imperial ambitions, instead of being immediately parted out into someone else's empire.
Would you prefer that Discord be folded into Slack? Perhaps it could become another Google's failed chat products? How about Microsoft Discord Teams for Enterprises? Is it just "oh shit they have to make money now?"
Don't get me wrong, I fuckin hate what Discord has done to communities and would prefer it didn't exist at all, but companies that drink of the cursed chalice of venture capital have to pay the devils eventually, and an IPO is pretty much the only way to pay the devils without having your soul completely sucked out. Maybe only 70% sucked out!
Discord
@jordan I've found that very few people understand the relationship between "taking funding rounds" and "having no good options left" (a lot of folks I've talked to seem to model funding as 'free money' in their understanding), so probably the response to the IPO is based purely on the connection between "IPO" and "profit maximization", not quite recognizing that Discord landed on a fixed path the moment they did funding rounds.
