What I Hate About Selling Companies

By all measures the past year has been successful. Teams that I’ve backed have sold their companies to Disney, Apple and AOL for substantive amounts of money. Founders have done very well, our fund has done well. Exhibit: Champagne and celebrations.

But the truth is that selling a company doesn’t always feel like a celebration as a VC. Not being a baby about it — my job is to return money to LPs. But I’ve been thinking about what had me a bit down about selling Maker Studios, Burstly and Gravity. Each of those teams were family. And the family extended beyond just the management team to include investors and the boards.

The more I’ve internalized things I’ve come to see selling a company like graduating high school or college. One day you have these great friends that you talk to all the time, you deal with tons of personal issues and drama, you have highs and lows but dammit — you were there together. I went from weekly (sometimes daily) phone calls with senior members of the team or other VCs. And now we barely see each other. And I miss those interactions. I miss those friends.

We’re all still friends but it’s not the same. Life moves on. You graduate. You have new friends and they’re pretty cool, too. You call your old friends. You meet for coffee. You’re proud of their life accomplishments and you’re happy for their successes: Financial and life outcomes. I miss both the management teams and my co-investors who like me are now spending more time with other deals.

Life is bittersweet. You cherish the moments together and just like family: You fight, you argue, you cause unnecessary drama but in the end in great board relationships — in healthy board relationships like in family — you have each other’s backs.

And then you move on. It’s inevitable. It’s a part of life. You accept it. Still: I hate selling companies. I hate when it’s time to graduate. You can never go back to those magic moments we had together. The wild ride — the highs and lows. I accept it as a fact of life. But I don’t have to like it.