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Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units

reuters.com

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Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units

#81
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The REAL answer is "a tax efficient proxy for holding Alibaba shares".

Alibaba's market cap is $174B. Yahoo owns 24% of their stock. That's $41B of wealth right there. That's actually more than their own market cap, which is $28B! I imagine the natural duopoly of tech is at work here. Google/Bing is pretty much it for web searching in the US, with no room for whatever engine Yahoo is borrowing this week. Gmail (gmail.com, google business apps, etc)/MS(Outlook/Hotmail, Azure, Exchange 36…

> Alibaba's market cap is $174B. Yahoo owns 24% of their stock. That's $41B of wealth right there.

That last trade price times number of outstanding shares -- market cap -- is the only common basis for overall valuation of publicly traded firms (that is, the only basis that is guaranteed, by definition, to be available for every publicly traded firms) does not mean it is a particularly accurate and meaningful measure of the overall value in any useful sense.

Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units

#82

What about Tumblr ? Is that thing still on? was it worth the bazillion dollars they spent on the aquisition. Also a long time ago, Yahoo made Mark Cuban a billionaire. What happened to the technology they acquired from his company?

Notoriously bad deal(great for Mr Cuban though). Yahoo paid something along the lines of $10k per user of broadcast.com

Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units

#83
post #11
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> no one has any work for them that actually helps the business. What is their business now? Having no work is a leadership problem. If there really is no work then layoffs are a must, but the company is floundering around with no real direction....

This, IMHO, is the crucial point: what exactly is Yahoo's business? As an outside watcher I have no clue (I am also stupid). Hopefully people working there have better insight than myself.

They own tumblr, and a ton of alibaba shares.

Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units

#84

What about Tumblr ? Is that thing still on? was it worth the bazillion dollars they spent on the aquisition. Also a long time ago, Yahoo made Mark Cuban a billionaire. What happened to the technology they acquired from his company?

Tumblr remains a top 50 US site, so yeah it's still on.

Was it worth it? I don't see any meaningful competitors to them. Nobody has come along to knock them off. The $1.1 billion price was obviously steep for a blog service. So long as the traffic remains, they have some shot at turning it into a sustainable business. It's realistically worth 10% to 20% of what they paid for it though.

Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units

#86
post #80

They're going to kill Yahoo because some rich assholes don't want to pay their taxes.

No, they're going to kill Yahoo because it deserves to die; a company not making money doesn't really have a reason for existence, does it? (Or it should become a charity instead.)

Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units

#87
post #6

So I guess she did mean something when she said, "No layoffs...this week" [1] Brutal. [1] http://nypost.com/2016/01/18/marissa-mayers-job-safety-joke-...

Nice. Anyone staying at Yahoo despite a continuous, management-driven, downward spiral was already laying themselves off. Just a matter of time. That was before she even entered the picture. I respected her attempt to rescue one of the greats of the Old Web but it was beyond salvage. Now, it will be streamlined, gutted, and sold most likely. As financial management wanted all along...

I know it is popular to hate on the finance industry and management and all, but...honest question here...was there really a better solution?

Not trying to discount the human element as it absolutely sucks that many people will lose their jobs. But reallocating that capital that was tied up in Yahoo and clearly not doing any good there seems like an overall smart move if it couldn't be saved.

What would a better alternative have been?

Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alibaba's market cap is $174B. Yahoo owns 24% of their stock. That's $41B of wealth right there. That's actually more than their own market cap, which is $28B! I imagine the natural duopoly of tech is at work here. Google/Bing is pretty much it for web searching in the US, with no room for whatever engine Yahoo is borrowing this week. Gmail (gmail.com, google business apps, etc)/MS(Outlook/Hotmail, Azure, Exchange 36…

> Alibaba's market cap is $174B. Yahoo owns 24% of their stock. That's $41B of wealth right there. That last trade price times number of outstanding shares -- market cap -- is the only common basis for overall valuation of publicly traded firms (that is, the only basis that is guaranteed, by definition, to be available for every publicly traded firms) does not mean it is a particularly accurate and meaningful measure…

It does illustrate the point that Yahoo's wealth is really in its holdings. Yahoo as a company really doesn't produce much, or anything, of positive value.
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