As more great new companies are absorbed into big old companies, a whole new generation of change is lost. They can issue press releases saying how excited they are to be able to bring their product to a whole new world of customers, and how their new suitor will bring enormous resources to bear, but we know that’s usually not really what happens. Development slows, products stall, the staff that built the great stuff leaves, and mediocrity creeps in. Not always, but usually.

The next generation bends over - (37signals)

This paragraph exactly summed up what happened when the company I worked for in Arizona (Global Fulfillment Services) got bought by the oldest rebate company in the country, Young America Corporation which is based here in the Twin Cities.

Almost four years later all (save three or four) former GFS employees have left the company, and from what I understand YA is in an economic free fall. I now work for a small competitor and we’re getting several of their former clients who cite “extreme dissatisfaction” as the reason for their defection. YA bought GFS for “their technology” and then did their best to dismantle it. Business as usual for these companies does not seem to be a winning strategy in the 21st century.