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Yahoo misses profit expectations in what could be its last-ever earnings report

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Re: Yahoo misses profit expectations in what could be its last-ever earnings report

#111

Post by swalsh »

Being first to market is rarely a long term advantage, it's more like a shot of adrenaline. Over time you build up technical, and structural debt. As the front runner you have to make all the mistakes, after you've made them a competitor can swoop in, avoid your mistakes, and outperform. You may not pivot because hey what you're doing seems to work, or you may avoid a pivot because you have too much technical debt. But it seems to prove itself over and over again to be a very weak advantage.

Yahoo finance sucks compared to google finance, yahoo search sucks to google search, yahoo content sucks. Yahoo mail sucks, yahoo shopping sucks. Everything they do is not as good, but they were one of the first to do it all.

Re: Yahoo misses profit expectations in what could be its last-ever earnings report

#112

Post by jlgaddis »

l33tbro wrote: post #99

This is probably a really dumb question - but I have 17 years worth of Yahoo email. Most of it is for nostalgia, but how likely is it that this would be wiped away if/when Yahoo goes under?

The same question, from a different perspective: How likely is it that your mail would be kept (and remain accessible to you) if/when Yahoo! goes under?

I think I'd start making a local backup/copy of it.

Can you access it via IMAP? I'd recommend offlineimap or imapsync as starting points.

Re: Yahoo misses profit expectations in what could be its last-ever earnings report

#113

Post by skewart »

bsbechtel wrote: post #102
throwaway76543 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally this occurs when you exercise an option to purchase stock, then hold the stock while it significantly depreciates in value. Fairly common scenario during the dot-com bubble. 1) Option at $1 2) Exercise at $100, spending $1 to buy. Tax on $99 short term capital gains owed, or ~$35. 3) Stock falls to $10 and sold for a $9 profit. You still owe $35 capital gains and spent $1. Net loss of $25 per share.

So if you exercise an option to buy a stock for $1, you have to pay taxes on the stock's current value, but if you had bought the stock outright at $1, you don't have to pay capital gains until you sell? That's absurd

Yes. Yes it is absurd. A lot of people have been screwed over by this situation.

I think it's basically a bug in US tax law. The scenario is such an edge case for most Americans.

The other not-so-nice aspect of this is that it disproportionately affects people who aren't already relatively wealthy. Theoretically you can avoid this trap by exercising your options as soon as possible and locking yourself into long-term capital gains. But if you're joining a relatively established startup it may well be pretty expensive to immediately exercise your options. If you don't have, say, 100k lying around you have to wait until there's liquidity, thus opening yourself up to this risk.

Re: Yahoo misses profit expectations in what could be its last-ever earnings report

#114

Post by [deleted] »

elgabogringo wrote: post #75
discardorama wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about hyped, but Carol Bartz (also at Yahoo) was the most disappointing. She single-handedly killed Yahoo faster than anyone else. Compared to her, Mayer is a genius.

True. Funny how the biggest contenders for "most disappointing" on this thread are all former Yahoo CEO's. Mayer, Bartz, Semel.

[deleted]

Re: Yahoo misses profit expectations in what could be its last-ever earnings report

#115

Post by estefan »

ams6110 wrote: post #39
nostromo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple, of course. It's probably the biggest turn-around story of our time.

Apple turned around by moving much more heavily into consumer hardware, specifically the iPod and then the iPhone and iPad. It was not really a software turnaround, though that was a smaller part of it.

Actually the first thing Jobs did upon his return was to cut the product line and focus. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GMQhOm-Dqo

Re: Yahoo misses profit expectations in what could be its last-ever earnings report

#116

Post by imaginenore »

l33tbro wrote: post #99

This is probably a really dumb question - but I have 17 years worth of Yahoo email. Most of it is for nostalgia, but how likely is it that this would be wiped away if/when Yahoo goes under?

I doubt yahoo properties will just disappear. Too many users, too many ad views. They will likely be bought and supported.

But it's a good idea to back up your email anyway.

Re: Yahoo misses profit expectations in what could be its last-ever earnings report

#117

Post by macintux »

dredmorbius wrote: post #28
elgabogringo wrote: post #9

Has the valley ever seen a more hyped, yet disappointing hire than Mayer?

Carly Fiorina. Yahoo was dead man walking before Mayer came on. She wasn't the right hire to save it, but she wasn't the hire that killed it. Fiorina drove HP into the ground hard. It's survived, only barely, but no thanks to her. And while both are women, I'd keep an eye on both Nadella (Microsoft) and Pichai (Google). Nadella's got a turn-around job. Pichai's starting from a better position, but with a company that…

From a purely outcome-based view, I'd say firing Jobs was the best thing for Apple's long-term success. NeXT software was critical to the turnaround, and Steve apparently learned quite a bit (even some humility) during his time in the wilderness.

So: yay Sculley?

Re: Yahoo misses profit expectations in what could be its last-ever earnings report

#118

Post by theli0nheart »

hueving wrote: post #96
theli0nheart wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 2) Exercise at $100 [1], spending $1 to buy. Tax on $99 short term capital gains owed, or ~$35. This makes no sense. Simply exercising an option is not a taxable event--you're just trading a contract for shares of a stock. There's no money going into your bank account. Furthermore, you aren't taxed short-term capital gains when you haven't realized a profit. You'd need to exercise AND sell at $100 / share for those…

Sorry, but you are spreading dangerous misinformation. https://blog.wealthfront.com/exercise-stock-options-taxes/

You're right. I've asked the moderators to remove the comment. I was totally wrong here. Thanks for the link.

Re: Yahoo misses profit expectations in what could be its last-ever earnings report

#119

Post by Spoom »

bsbechtel wrote: post #102
throwaway76543 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Generally this occurs when you exercise an option to purchase stock, then hold the stock while it significantly depreciates in value. Fairly common scenario during the dot-com bubble. 1) Option at $1 2) Exercise at $100, spending $1 to buy. Tax on $99 short term capital gains owed, or ~$35. 3) Stock falls to $10 and sold for a $9 profit. You still owe $35 capital gains and spent $1. Net loss of $25 per share.

So if you exercise an option to buy a stock for $1, you have to pay taxes on the stock's current value, but if you had bought the stock outright at $1, you don't have to pay capital gains until you sell? That's absurd

There are some downsides but this is one of the reasons that phantom stock and phantom stock options[1] can be good for employees as there is essentially nothing taxable until the actual payout, which is treated as regular income and can have taxes withheld like a normal bonus.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phantom_stock

Re: Yahoo misses profit expectations in what could be its last-ever earnings report

#120

Post by RankingMember »

antoineMoPa wrote: post #49

"Yahoo"... The brand is the problem. It sounds like a good name for a personal website in 1998 (with 85 gifs and a turquoise background).

With the right products, I'm of the opinion that you can name your company just about anything and be successful. I mean is Google's name any better if you don't keep their products in mind?

Let's also not forget about GoDaddy, which for a time was successful with that name and hobbles along (operating at a loss) even today.

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