Zendesk sold to private investors two weeks after saying it would stay public

Customer service as-a-service vendor Zendesk has announced it will allow itself to be acquired for $10.2 billion by a group of investors led by private equity firm Hellman & Friedman, investment company Permira, and a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority. The decision is a little odd, in light of the …

[sarusa]

It's just corporate ethics

All you really need to know is that any corporation, despite all their platitudes about giving back or ethical guidance or blah blah blah, would happily grind live puppies, kittens, ducklings, and baby bunnies into blood meal as painfully as possible if they could make a profit doing that. They are all amoral monsters.

When it was fashionable to hate gay they hated gay people, when it became fashionable to be gay they were rah rah gay people, but they all would turn again in an instant and have wacky heartwarming commercials about sending GLBT people (or racial minorities, or whatever) to the gas chambers if it started delivering stockholder value again.

To get back to TFA, everything they say is a calculated lie that's only true when it meets up with profitable realities.

[ThatOne]

Re: It's just corporate ethics

Sadly true.

The problem is they get rewarded for being sadistic, borderline criminal jerks, and punished if they are foolish enough to act like humans. So it's only bound to get worse...

[Little Mouse]

"The effects of those actions are often not much fun for customers of acquired companies."

It's not exactly a barrel of laughs for the employees either.

[ThatOne]

You mean the assets...

[thejoelr]

The company resources.

[Mayday]

"Investment" Firms

"investment firms are seldom shy of making rapid and swingeing changes such as offloading underperforming assets"

Such as staff?

[Abominator]

Re: "Investment" Firms

Come on, they are costs, not assets!

[Pascal Monett]

The important words

"at this time"

Time is changing all the time.

Apparently, it changed bloody quickly for Zendesk (or, for its CEO/board, more specifically).

[CrazyOldCatMan]

Re: The important words

Apparently, it changed bloody quickly for Zendesk

Never underestimate the power of several large bags of money that mysteriously arrive at the execs houses..

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets be clear

This isn't about profits (although that will be the excuse for swingeing cuts to budgets and staff.

It isn't about corporate ethics, which is rapidly approaching oxymoron status, and can be summed up as don't go to jail.

It's entirely about a massive payout to the C-suite suits and the investors, none of whom will care about what happens to the rest of their former employees, their former company, or their former customers.