How I Almost Got Acquired By Apple And Then Snubbed

Welcome to the wild ride of dealing with large corporations. What you encountered here is absolutely standard -- in fact, I'd say it's actually better than what you'd get when dealing with most large companies, since Steve actually replied back at the end with a "not interested".<p>You may have put a lot of hope in the "if you've already incorporated, we could acquire your company" line but I can guarantee they didn't put a lot of thought into it.<p>They were just talking about hiring you (with "acquisition" as the legal mechanism, or not). Maybe with a bit of a hiring bonus.<p>The standard play when dealing with any large company is always "hurry up and wait". For whatever reason, this is just something you need to get used to.<p>Do you really expect either Steve or this engineering manager to be replying within 48 hours? I think the second you started badgering them and brought Steve back in the loop, you were toast.

Is it possible that the picture the author had in his head of "Being acquired" was skewing things here? I don't see any clear indications that an "Acquisition" was ever in the offing here. He emailed Steve, Steve forwarded it to an engineer who the author was lucky enough to hear back from at all.<p>Most likely they looked at what he was outputting and weren't impressed, or had another solution in mind. I'm assuming (and hoping for his sake) from my interpretation that he never submitted actual code to them - just output.

You sound awfully pushy, and can't you just take a hint? I have been not called back by women, customers, partners, and everyone else. They have expressed interest and left me hanging.<p>At first, you be persistent, and you get more dates and more contracts because of it. But you also learn when to take a hint, and Apple gave you several.

This is not what "almost getting acquired" looks like. At a stretch it might be what almost getting <i>hired</i> looks like, but even that would be pushing it I think.<p>Of course it would be nice if people would just tell you when they're not interested, but generally nobody does that. Adjust your filters accordingly - if someone doesn't seem <i>excited</i>, they're probably not interested at all.

I think continuing to email Steve was his fatal mistake. It shows a manager that you are willing to jump rank at a moments notice. Some times you have to, but in this case 3 days go by and the manager says he is sick. Take him at face value and understand that managers of large corporations are extremely busy. I am sure that Steve told the manager to pull back after receiving secondary emails, realizing that this would be a high maintenance relationship in which he felt that he could ping Steve at a moments notice (a person who is even more busy)

As someone who's been through this many times, here's a tip:<p>Any time someone emails you about acquiring you, hiring you, sponsoring you, etc, just assume the actual odds of it happening are about 1%, and be happily surprised if something eventually comes of it.<p>If they really, really want you, they'll be hitting you up every chance they get.

I actually thought the Apple engineer, Patrick Gates, was super polite - a lot of people wouldn't even have bothered to respond. And I don't think anyone ever wanted to acquire anything.

I bet every entrepreneur here would loved to see your startup get acquired, but buddy there were no hint of an acquisition in this guy's communication. You should have been patient, launch your app and keep the communication going. Then maybe, maybe, after 2 years they would look into you.

I feel for this guy -- this is a case of not "speaking American." As an American who works with foreigners a lot, I hear a lot of complaints about how we try to let people down nicely instead of being direct. My middle-east coworkers especially hate this.<p>Email makes it even worse.

The interest dropped off right after he submitted the results of the algorithm. So perhaps the algorithm simply wasn't good. Emailing the CEO with a novel algorithm idea and then sending in the results is classic crackpot behavior, not unlike sending your theory of everything to the head of the MIT physics department. I'm surprised anyone responded at all to the initial email.

"Given that search is their strength, it will be imperative on Apple to provide a more intuitive itunes/app store search and discovery solution to its users"<p>No matter if you are right or wrong, I can imagine that Apple doesn't like being taught about what they should do. I imagine they think they have a fairly good idea as to what they should do. Maybe your attitude turned them off a little. Just a guess, though.

IMO you were extremely lucky to get any response whatsoever. If I am Patrick I would have quickly dumped you in the pester / annoyance category. Bringing Steve jobs into the mix the second time was fatal, regardless of time frame this is not something to bother him with.

Even if Apple almost "acquired" you (I don't really get that impression), I'd say that penning a blog entry complaining about it is not the most productive thing to do (and might even cause investors in the future to think twice about getting involved with you).

Apple certainly won't be interested in future projects with this dude.

What I expected: OP in negotiations with some technology that Apple would like to pick up to improve its product. OP says something like: "Google and Adobe do this better. You should talk to them."<p>What I got: OP at the level of spam mailing Apple saying that he is the #1 superstar Ace to improve iTunes only to be told to "Get Bent."

You didn't really have any leverage in this situation. If you did, you didn't express it in a meaningful way.<p>It's business, not personal. They have so many things going on, it's a bit like trying to get your resume noticed.<p>Do something crazy, or obnoxious, or out of the blue that will get you noticed NOW. Then show them how, if they don't pay attention to you, it will cost them money.

The Apple engineer made the mistake of casually talking about "acquiring" or "hiring". That would greatly raise anyone's expectations and subsequent anxiety. The other guy made the mistake of being pushy, especially when he cc'ed Steve - it likely pissed off the Apple engineer and certainly would not have made a good impression on Steve.

<i>"It is unethical in all cultures to keep someone waiting while you flout the time commitments."</i><p>I think you mean "impolite", not "unethical". Keeping someone waiting doesn't really have a moral value one way or another.<p>Secondly, unless you are Margaret Mead or an anthropologist of equal stature, you're not qualified to talk about what is polite in ALL cultures. It might be impolite in YOUR culture, but that doesn't necessarily apply to other cultures.

Well if it helps, we held 4 in-person meetings with a company with keen interest before they went totally cold. Took a few months to get a clear "no."<p>This wasn't too bad. All things aside, I don't think Apple was interested in acquiring you. You did the best you could. They did the best they could. I <i>really</i> don't think you pestering them would matter much if they really wanted your technology.

Something I still have yet to understand is how people who develop for and want to improve apple products repeatedly get screwed over by apple. (Granted he may have been a bit quick to jump to the top in this case)<p>Then they keep going right back to develop and improve apple products. Why keep going back?

I think in dealing with businesses, as an independent developer (or even as a developer concerned about your long-term career within an organization), you have to think about things in wireframe. Forget shaders, all that is extra.<p>Wireframe = bottom line and the business requirements and strategies. Everything else on top, giving out free WWDC videos, etc., that's all extra. And it's great when it's available.<p>But in negotiations you have to look at it in terms of wireframe mode. Otherwise, you'll focus on the wrong local extrema, etc.

How exactly does a one-entry weblog make it to the front page? Clearly this guy has some semantic mojo.<p>Otherwise, the story is dumb because it isn't "almost got acquired." It's "dude gets excessively excited because of a couple of emails." Just reread the Panic Audion story for something interesting: <a href="http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/" rel="nofollow">http://www.panic.com/extras/audionstory/</a>

Sorry, not interested.

The thing to do would have been to develop the app and submit it to the app store, get users, become popular, etc. Once you had some real traction acquisition <i>might</i> have been a possibility.

Maybe I'm just naive, but the final email in that conversation:<p>"""Thanks Steve.<p>I’m a bit disappointed.<p>Wish you all the best and looking forward to seeing more innovative products and services from Apple.<p>Kandarp"""<p>sounds very "Thank you sir may I have another?" to me.

I've written some software which I occasionally receive emails about. I'll say this: if you ask an intelligent question, I will very likely help you. However, if you follow that up by peppering me with further questions or come across as demanding/pushy, I'm very likely to ignore you.<p>This is also generally true for open source projects and I'm not surprised the same applies for Apple.<p>OP: you screwed up. you have noone to blame but yourself.

Deals fall through.

To save time, the gist of it:<p>1) Author emails Steve Jobs about algorithm to improve Appstore's discover-ability problem. 2) Steve replies. 3) Author gets strung along by a semi cooperating engineer. 4) A month and a few emails later, he is told: we are not interested.<p>- At some point the engineer casually mentions that if he (the Author) incorporated, Apple could acquire him (i.e. hire him).

When someone drops out of communication with you for more than a week it almost always means they're not that interested. This is true for potential employers, investors, mates, etc. While its unfortunate that people aren't more direct, the fact is, rejection takes work and provides very little upside for the person doing the rejecting.

Its a great insight to how the conversation goes with a large corporation, so thanks to whoever posted it. However the conversation becomes rather emotional.<p>The first email is pretty professional, concisely describing a problem and solution, which got him the initial probing. But if it turns out to be negative in the end, its really nobody to blame.

Someone wants to do a deal? Get a face to fact meeting. Get on a plane if you have to.

Semantic search? a bounded data set? Hasn't this problem been solved a million times? Surely Apple has a team with exactly this specialty?

a) This looks really useful b) Could you create and Android store so people can benefit from your idea?

There's no "almost" about this. far, far, far from almost.

Doesn't look like it.

There are no angels in this little drama.

Talk is cheap. Show me^H^Hus the code.