Documenting the death of OnLive: notes from the company's final meeting
"I've been a non-stop fundraising machine," OnLive CEO Steve Perlman told his entire staff yesterday morning. "And I finally got to the point where I just could not bring in enough funding to carry this thing forward." The hundreds of employees that make up OnLive were - en masse - relieved of their positions in yesterday's meeting, including Perlman himself. "All of us, technically, as of today, our jobs have ended - our current jobs with this company," another administrator informed the crowd after Perlman finished speaking.
OnLive is enterting what is known in California state as an "Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors," or an "ABC," (a form of bankruptcy) wherein an "assignee" (a person, persons, or entity) takes over the assets of the current company - in OnLive's case, this means "the software, hardware, network architecture, our logo, all that stuff," according to Perlman - in an effort to lighten the previous company's debts and get its creditors paid off. Thus the "Benefit of Creditors" part of that acronym.
Perlman didn't say who that assignee was during the company's meeting, only referring to him as "an extraordinary guy" (not an entity), and a "very accomplished and well known venture capitalist" who is "very wealthy." The unknown assignee apparently believes that OnLive "is the entire future of everything," Perlman told employees. Unfortunately, he isn't wealthy enough to bring on the 150-200 people that OnLive employed.
"Here's the tough part, and this is the thing I'm very sorry to say: it's just not possible for one individual in a startup - whether it's that old startup or this new startup - to bring in this many people into a company," Perlman said. Without giving numbers, Perlman said that, in the new company, "the people that come on board are the essential people, as needed, to go and accomplish that goal of getting this thing to cash-flow positive."
He prefaced that news with a stinging reality: "The people that are gonna be coming on board here, that will come out of the group ... I'm gonna tell you, most of the people will not be coming on board."
OnLive is enterting what is known in California state as an "Assignment for the Benefit of Creditors," or an "ABC," (a form of bankruptcy) wherein an "assignee" (a person, persons, or entity) takes over the assets of the current company - in OnLive's case, this means "the software, hardware, network architecture, our logo, all that stuff," according to Perlman - in an effort to lighten the previous company's debts and get its creditors paid off. Thus the "Benefit of Creditors" part of that acronym.
Perlman didn't say who that assignee was during the company's meeting, only referring to him as "an extraordinary guy" (not an entity), and a "very accomplished and well known venture capitalist" who is "very wealthy." The unknown assignee apparently believes that OnLive "is the entire future of everything," Perlman told employees. Unfortunately, he isn't wealthy enough to bring on the 150-200 people that OnLive employed.
"Here's the tough part, and this is the thing I'm very sorry to say: it's just not possible for one individual in a startup - whether it's that old startup or this new startup - to bring in this many people into a company," Perlman said. Without giving numbers, Perlman said that, in the new company, "the people that come on board are the essential people, as needed, to go and accomplish that goal of getting this thing to cash-flow positive."
He prefaced that news with a stinging reality: "The people that are gonna be coming on board here, that will come out of the group ... I'm gonna tell you, most of the people will not be coming on board."
