This was not very quick.

> My history with email clients being acquired is not encouraging.

Ignoring the constraint of "email client", has there been any acquisitions where the acquired product got better post-acquisition?

I can think of countless examples where it got worse, but from the top of my head, I can only think of maybe YouTube, but then only in the initial post-purchase period, and same goes for a bunch of other examples. They seem to eventually always turn sour.

Maybe GitHub? But it traded "no new features - no downtime" for "some new features - a lot of downtime" after the Microsoft purchase, so I guess it's very subjective, probably at least some people like that tradeoff.

I miss waiting in that large invite queue until you were finally let in, what felt like the first inbox zero proponents and possibly(?) introducing the swiping rows with different actions depending how much you swiped.

> See Dropbox/Mailbox.

And Google/Sparrow.

Sparrow

I don't know if it's uniquely American but I agree it is a very annoying term. It just means cash. Finance bros like to pretend they are "going into battle" or something when they go negotiate an acquisition, so the analogy is that you have a large store of gunpowder ready to deploy at a moment's notice when you want to go to war (go acquire a company).

“Dry powder” is cash on hand to fund acquisitions. Yes, it is one of the worst businessisms.

> Dry powder to do what?

This is a very common term for business people and especially investors and startups. It's a short phrase that carries a lot of meaning and packs a lot of punch.

Google Gemini:

> In finance, dry powder refers to readily available cash or liquid assets that a company, investor, or fund manager holds in reserve for future investments or to meet obligations during economic downturns. It's a metaphor, originating from the need to keep gunpowder dry for use in battle, symbolizing preparedness and flexibility in financial contexts.

> In essence, dry powder is unspent capital waiting to be deployed

This one term packs in all of that meaning into two words, so it is quite a useful tool. "Cash" alone doesn't have an implied context, whereas "dry powder" is immediately understood for strategy and positioning.

It's also nice to have analogies that are striking and evocative. It makes language fun and flowery instead of dusty and spartan. Business people have to business all day, and this injects a little flavor and excitement with wordplay. Drawing up images of 17th century battles is nice when the reality is emailing back and forth.

There lots of other phrases like this that you'll stumble upon. Someone should make a dictionary of these at some point.

I guess that explains the Coda acquisition.

Honestly, I wonder what makes anyone think that Grammarly is the right centerpiece for an AI rollup?

Dry powder as in gunpowder.

Perhaps you are familiar with similar phrases “ammunition” and “war chest”?

> Dry powder to do what?! Is this americanism?

No, is financialism, which is basically the same thing but I digress.

> Dry powder is a slang term referring to marketable securities that are highly liquid and considered cash-like - https://www.investopedia.com/terms/d/drypowder.asp

Finance seems particularly filled with terms with no real connection attached to the concepts at hand, not sure why. Sounds cool I suppose?

Financialisms like dry powder are fairly mainstream and I'm just glad that they didn't use consultantspeak.

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They raised $1 billion and bought a small company.

If Ai was so good, they wouldn't have needed to buy a company. They would have vibe coded it in 10 minutes.