When you are being acquired, you could say: "We're worried about loosing our culture, which has brought us the success we've seen so far. I want to agree that our group will be allowed to set its own rules to some degree in terms of working environment." And give a few examples. No need to push it or make this legally binding, or even put it in writing.
Then, when the timesheet dude shows up (which they will), just say no. When the meetings are being called, say no. It'll be a shitstorm, and lots of people will dislike you for getting away with it, but you should get your way if this happens soon after the acquisition (when someone way up stands behind the acquisition and can't have it go bad this early.) Let the shitstorm happen, and stand tall. I don't think any company would fire founders of a company they acquired a month or two ago.
I don't know, anyone know of cases where it happened this way? Or is being a wholly owned sub really the only way to have a culture that's separate from the parent company?
The flickr people were pretty good at this. I was less so.
One thing that always bugged me - when I ran Delicious, I had people submit a weekly status update (just a list of bullet points) to the entire company. That way everyone knew what was going on.
We got to Yahoo, and my boss decided to kill that.
When I got to Google, globally visible weekly status in bullet point form are part of the culture. I take this as validation.
What's the accountability like? If in delicious case if it is to be shut down, do the execs/managers responsible for it get some kind of penalty or is it business as usual where the blame can be passed to any number of other things for poor performance?
I briefly worked at Winamp shortly after they were acquired by AOL.
They did this, but took it to another level and kind of tortured the incumbent manager assigned to supervise them. It was the only time in my career I have ever seen a grown man cry at work.
Trying to fight the bureaucracy from within is generally Sisyphean. You may hold out temporarily, but you make enemies in the process. Unless you can execute indefinitely without mistakes, eventually something will provide an opening for the thin end of the wedge.
Then, when the timesheet dude shows up (which they will), just say no. When the meetings are being called, say no. It'll be a shitstorm, and lots of people will dislike you for getting away with it, but you should get your way if this happens soon after the acquisition (when someone way up stands behind the acquisition and can't have it go bad this early.) Let the shitstorm happen, and stand tall. I don't think any company would fire founders of a company they acquired a month or two ago.
I don't know, anyone know of cases where it happened this way? Or is being a wholly owned sub really the only way to have a culture that's separate from the parent company?