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Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

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Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#132
post #30
post #4

Holy fuck that is a lot of money. How on earth is LinkedIn worth anywhere near that?!

Well they did do $3 billion in revenue last year. http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=LNKD+Income+Statement&annual

Revenue isn't really relevant when you're losing money as fast as Linkedin. They have no real competitors, and they still aren't able to turn a profit.

Even $3 billion is to much.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#133
post #73

The last gasp. Just like Yahoo with tumblr. When a corporate behemoth has a dream of transformation, they rather just buy that dream than to actually undergo transformation themselves.

Yahoo were borderline negligent with that purchase. I suspect the shareholders and board at Microsoft have a much better idea of what they're planning to do to monetise Linked In.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#134
post #72
post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike Snapchat or Instagram, which could very likely turn into MySpace 2.0 or 3.0, Linkedin is actually very entrenched in its market.

This just isn't true. There's nothing about LinkedIn that makes it any more indispensable than those sites or Monster.com or any other site popular with recruiters in the past. This is going to go down in history as one of the most overpriced, worst acquisitions of all time. LinkedIn has already become more associated with being spammy than with any positive connotations.

I take it you don't work in enterprise ? It's terribly popular and I would imagine if you're over 40 then you may well be spending more time on it than Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat combined.

Given Microsoft is trying to double down on the corporate space it is a pretty smart buy. Being about to push Azure/Office 365 through it could be invaluable.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More connections to enterprise, potential for some cloud HR play, a ready-established pseudo social network to compete with Facebook for Work (maybe as part of a Yammer, Office365, Skype for Business play), s t-tonne of user data, SlideShare...

I'm still confused. If someone is shopping for a job on LinkedIn, do they want their employer to know that? Isn't there some risk of trust violation? Why would I want to take my online resume and hand it out around work? I just don't get the synergy plays here. They all feel like a very expensive moonshot.

I connect with colleagues, even my manager when I was at my previous job, even though I found my current role on there. But, think about it from the current plays - they have the work connections (organic "company graph"), the user's skills, your current job details (think about both of those as being an HR play), a learning platform (Lynda, but think of that as internal training/cloud qualifications), industry/enterprise trend information (can dive into the data of all of the roles and build products based on predicting market requirements). Slap on Pulse and SlideShare as publishing and an established (and probably growing) revenue hose from Recruiter and it makes some sense.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#136

I'm not sure what Microsoft is getting with LinkedIn for $26bn. I know it is a little crazy, but I think they would have been better off buying Redhat for $15bn or Canonical (Ubuntu linux) for even cheaper.

That would attract truly unprecedented levels of hostility and a declaration of war by segments of the Linux community.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#137
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You not liking it doesn't make it a poor business strategy.

But large numbers of people not liking it does make it a poor business strategy - not immediately, but it's the sort of thing people will remember.

Large numbers of people in the tech community. Most people aren't us.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#138
post #11

Oh, I can just imagine how the process went at MS: * Exec A: Social things are Good (coming to the conclusion about 10 years too late) * Exec B: Shall we create our own Google+? * Exec C: No, that didn't turn out that well for Google. Let's buy something existing. * Exec B: Ok, I've Googled a list of top 10 social networking sites for sale, and ordered them by list price, but really we'll need to come up with a strat…

Microsoft actually created their own social network: http://www.so.cl/ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/So.cl And Microsoft bought Yammer - an "enterprise social network for businesses".

Speaking of Yammer, Knowledge Architecture has made their own platform on top of Yammer for an internal social network for companies.

Re: Microsoft to acquire LinkedIn for $26B

#139
post #19

Congrats to anyone who was holding LinkedIn stock. Microsoft's bid of $196 per share has LNKD up $63 bucks a share or 48% in premarket. Edit: Also a cautionary tale for anyone shorting a stock that fundamentally sucks but could be a buyout target. Use options instead!

Perhaps congrats on the loss and write down if you bought above $196. Looks like LNKD traded north of $200 for a good portion of the last 2 years.

Ouch, I knew it took a big hit after dismal earnings and guidance last time (or two) but thought it had recovered a bit. Congrats on breaking even then I guess to anyone holding since Feb.
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