WalMart bought Jet and then immediately went to war against the culture of Jet

(written by lawrence krubner, however indented passages are often quotes). You can contact lawrence at: lawrence@krubner.com, or follow me on Twitter.

This suggests that the WalMart leadership team did not understand what they were buying when they bought Jet, or they think they can break the culture without breaking the company. I like this comment:

I’m not going to even address whether drinking and swearing in the office should or shouldn’t be allowed – it’s irrelevant. Walmart basically decided that they wanted to buy Jet because Jet had capabilities and talent that they wanted in order to compete with companies like Amazon. It’s a major failure on Walmart’s part to either not discover, or not understand, that those capabilities and talent exist within a specific corporate culture. The fact that they think they can change it without impacting what they sought to acquire indicates a real lack of understanding of corporate culture.

You don’t need to drink and swear in the office to do what Jet does, but Jet was built with that as part of its culture, and changing it is going to impact its workforce. Don’t acquire a startup for the value of the startup-y things that it’s done unless you’re in it for the whole package. Otherwise, license what Jet does or become its customer/client in some other way.

Post external references

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    https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14655874
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