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I don’t believe this has been mentioned anywhere on this site yet, but check out the poll over at http://www.justadventure.com (especially you, Ken!).
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Fun question. The honest answer is that “Sierra was a public company. As CEO of a public company, my responsibility was to the shareholders, and I had to do what I felt was in the best interests of the shareholders.” We received an offer to acquire the company that represented a premium to the price we were trading at of approximately 50%. Also importantly, Walter Forbes, the CEO of the company who acquired us, had a vision to acquire several of Sierra’s competitors and create a “mega-company” which would move Sierra into another plateau, and give it much greater distribution around the world. This meant higher revenues for all of our products, and bigger budgets for our products.
Initially I refused the acquisition offer, believing that Sierra would lose its creative ability to build product if rolled into a conglomerate. To counter my objection, the acquiring company put in place a structure which guaranteed Sierra its independence. There was an agreement that only “non-creative” pieces, such as manufacturing and sales offices would be consolidated, and that I would continue to run all the groups that built product. With the belief that Sierra would “remain Sierra” I agreed to the merger.
What none of us knew at the time was the the company who acquired us did not have pure motives. None of the promises made were kept, and ultimately criminal charges were filed against the company who acquired us. There is still criminal litigation in progress against Walter Forbes. Some members of the management team of the company that acquired have already been convicted.
So .. to answer the question .. It wasn’t the sale that hurt Sierra. What killed Sierra was that it was acquired by criminals. I still believe that based on the information I had at the time, the decision I made was in Sierra’s best interests. Unfortunately, I got scammed.
-Ken W
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Ken,
I know you’re a busy man, but I was interested to get your take on ideas put forth by this article:http://www.g-r-e-e-d.com/GREED%20II.htm
I sent the guy a specific argument about one of his points, and although he acknowledged my points as being “good”, I think I was dismissed.
I would be happy to post our argument here, but these discussions are political, and if I remember correctly, aren’t you trying to keep political discussions off of the boards ???
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Greetings Patrick.
Fun article.
Here’s my thought on the issue:
The article paints a picture of the US economy as a few rich people exploiting a country full of starving workers.
Personally I dislike articles that complain about something, but then don’t offer an alternate solution. The article criticizes the “American way” without pointing towards a vision of a country that is doing it better. What does the author see as the correct role model? It is easy to complain about things, but hard to do them better.
I’ve lived in Europe, and I’ve lived in Mexico, and of course I’ve lived in the US. I’ve also visited more than my fair share of countries. I’ve even traveled extensively in places like China. Yes, there are things about America that seem wrong. But that said, as of today, I can’t think of a country which I wish America were more like. This is a great place, and a great system.
I would argue that one indicator of whether or not the article has a basis, would be the US borders. Generally speaking, are people from other countries interested in moving here, or leaving here? Are immigrants who come here quickly disenchanted and rushing to go home, or are they building careers and integrating with society? Is there a huge group of America’s poor fighting to leave the US to reach other countries where they perceive more opportunity for success?
To summarize: The author seems to think our way of doing things is wrong, but never offers an alternative. Our system is not without flaws, and I suspect there are things we can learn from other countries, but overall, I can’t think of another country whose system I think we would be better served by. The article’s author never says it, but I was reading between the lines that he prefers a socialist system or even a communist system. Once again I would say “Give me an example, and let’s look at their economy.”
Argh…. I should know better than to get drawn into political discussion… it’s a lose-lose game.
-Ken W
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Exactly! I agree with everything you are saying. If anyone is reading this, I encourage them to hold people accountable for claims they make and force them to give viable alternatives and “ways of fixing the problem” before giving credibility to their ideas.
Ken, he actually did offer a solution (see the Remedies section [last one]). Essentially, his idea is to shut down bad business – (equates it to the 3 strikes rule in California). Doesn’t the market naturally do this for us already? You may have bad businesses succeed in the short term, but it is not a good long term strategy. If they do happen to succeed for the long term, I would consider it lucky and rare. Lucky and rare do not seem like good business models.
Thanks for the thoughts.
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Let me add another thing (I can’t help it…I am passionate about these kinds of discussions). You are correct to say that our system may not be perfect, but for anyone to assume that any system would be perfect is just silly. Any system will have problems. I believe this can be contributed, in part, to the fact that there will always be BAD people in the world. Don’t shrug this off. Unless you are living in Utopia, where everyone is good, honest, and can be trusted, then certain individuals and groups will be taken advantage of, used, extorted, etc…always.
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Quote:
“… (by Ken Williams)So .. to answer the question .. It wasn’t the sale that hurt Sierra. What killed Sierra was that it was acquired by criminals. I still believe that based on the information I had at the time, the decision I made was in Sierra’s best interests. Unfortunately, I got scammed.
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I’ve been wondering about that. Were the terms they promised you (Sierra stays creatively independent) written in the sales contract? If so, was there talk about suing the aquiring company for breach of contract when you saw where things were going?
Also, before the sale, was there any movement in Sierra to tackle the new 3D platforms that were rolling out because of the introduction of the Voodoo card? I know that KQ: MoE addressed this, but I thought the whole development of that game was done after the sale. I guess my question is, would it have been done without any outside pressure from the parent company?
All in all, I would have to say your agreement to sell was pretty much compulsory. I’m sure the shareholders would have revolted on you if you turned down what those guys were offering. What was it, 50% above asking price per share?
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