Pro: I think selling the whole company for $x is harder than selling 10% for $x/10.
Con: Big companies can also destroy value effectively (doesn't appear to be the case at all with Salesforce/Heroku, but...look at anything Yahoo has bought, and a bunch of things Google, Microsoft, etc. have bought. Skype, etc.
There's also some bias in the press here -- people reading mass-market publications actually might use (or at least understand) dropbox and airbnb; they have no idea what Heroku does. And, in tech/venture press, independent companies are more interesting because they might get bought; it's unlikely anyone will buy Heroku from Salesforce, or buy Salesforce, so it's less interesting to the press.
The value destruction is a good point, it just depends on where we are looking. Whether people consider a good sale price that was driven into the ground as more of a success than a lower sale price which goes on to continue to thrive and be a good investment for the acquirer.
Pro: I think selling the whole company for $x is harder than selling 10% for $x/10.
Con: Big companies can also destroy value effectively (doesn't appear to be the case at all with Salesforce/Heroku, but...look at anything Yahoo has bought, and a bunch of things Google, Microsoft, etc. have bought. Skype, etc.
There's also some bias in the press here -- people reading mass-market publications actually might use (or at least understand) dropbox and airbnb; they have no idea what Heroku does. And, in tech/venture press, independent companies are more interesting because they might get bought; it's unlikely anyone will buy Heroku from Salesforce, or buy Salesforce, so it's less interesting to the press.