What Is It Like To Sell Your Company To Google?

 I’m a three-time startup entrepreneur (Naughty Dog, ITA Software, and now http://inky.com), and we sold the middle one, ITA Software, to Google for ~$700M in 2010.

I can’t speak to the integration process, because I didn’t stay on as a Google employee, but I was heavily involved in the M&A process and can say that Google runs a very tight corporate development ship.

While their approach is pretty painful for the acquired company, it was reasonably fair and, I thought, entirely ethical. Our deal was — and, I suspect, most large acquisitions they make are — complicated by the DOJ making a Hart-Scott-Rodino “second request” for (much) more information about the transaction. This meant that Google had many things to think about with respect to our transaction that really had nothing to do with our company per se, and caused the process towards closing to become quite protracted (10 months).

As to the emotions, selling your company is like giving your child up for adoption; it’s inherently agonizing and generally an awful feeling. Both times I’ve been involved in serious discussions to sell a company I (co)founded, I became physically ill from the stress.

But one strong argument in favor of Google as an acquirer for us was that our corporate culture at ITA Software was very similar to what we understood the culture at Google to be. And, indeed, the integration has gone well enough that very few ITA folks have left due to poor cultural fit, boredom, etc.

If I’m ever in a position to consider Google as an acquirer again, I would certainly not hesitate to engage with them. They are very good at M&A, and I think it’s one of their key success drivers now that they’re so large.