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DC started as a 100% skate company. Didn't buy into skating.
don't try to act like it didn't.
Obviously Vans is in there. Didn't start out as a skate shoe.. but they have been involved since way back.. So its not a strange exception.
DVS started as skate...
Huf, Lakai... skate as well...100%
In my opinion.. for whatever reasons companies have to sell all or portions of their company to keep moving or progress, thats all gravy... but when a company comes in and dupes the entire industry.. all the way down to skate shops... thats a problem.
Watch what happens in the next couple years... It won't be good...
Yeah, Kakis you're missing a fundamental point about the insurgence of corporations into skateboarding. It doesn't matter if they started as skater owned, now they are owned by corporations with aggressive sales forecasts the authority to make decisions for the company. They aren't skater owned anymore and that's what matters.
McDonald's started as a small hamburger shop. Walmart started as Walton's, a tiny store. Now they're fuckin evil.
DC is not skater owned and is a corporate company. I think DC is fine though. So are the other companies owned by AC. But they all have "darkmen" to quote Jerry.
Point taken, but I think people are not completely understanding the Altamont finance situation. They provide working capital and have two seats on the crailtap board. They do not own crailtap. They are an investor, as I understand that. So it pretty disingenuous to say that these brands are not skater owned. Mike, Rick, Meg etc still own the companies, but now someone else also has a stake. And Rick and Mike could kick them out if they want to.
This is not the same as Nike, which is a publicly traded corportation. The skaters cannot kick out the corporate people. It's a different situation.
No, it's not the same as a publicly traded company. BUT, as you said, Altamont IS providing the working capital. And the fact is that Crail needed to have some sort of outside cash influx, as things were not working the way they needed them to, from a financial standpoint. So, being that they are providing the working income, I have to think that they have a little bit of a heavier influence with regards to the business decisions being made. It's not like they are in the business of giving people money to keep running their fledgling companies without changing anything. Yes, Rick, Mike and Meg are still on the board, but their influence isn't what it used to be in decision making.
This is called moving the ball. You said "They aren't skater owned anymore and that's what matters." This is blatantly false. Yes, taking on private equity can result in spreading of authority, but the company is still owned, primarily, not by altamont capital. This is not only very different from Nike but different than, say, when Workshop was bought by Burton. Does crailtap have some outside influence, sure. But it just strikes me as financially untrue to say they are not skater owned or that Rick/Mike/Meg are subservient to the "darkmen."
Given the state of skateboarding, it strikes me that they probably needed more money to be competitive and some rearranging for supply chain cohesion, and so forth. It's not very weird from a business perspective. And again, it's qualitatively different than Nike. Alex Olson, Koston, and P-Rod cannot kick Nike out if they dont like how things are being run.