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

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131–140 of 155 posts

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

#132

"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.

Indeed, if the roles were somehow reversed and Yahoo! was the juggernaut and Google was dying, people would no doubt be saying the same stuff.

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

#133
post #101
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'd say Apple turned around by moving into media distribution rather than hardware. The iTunes and App stores are massive revenue generators for Apple.

Apple was already doing well before the iPod with iTunes and later the iPhone and app store came along.

The turn around happened before.

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

#134
post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice strategy. I wonder why others didn't do it.

If you read Mark's story, it's clear that he was aware of what was happening at the time but didn't drink the kool-aid, while if you look at the other dot bombs, they definitely thought the world was changing and the rules had changed.

"Read his story" --> Can you provide a link to this particular story? I would be interested to read it.

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

#135
post #31

Has there ever been a successful turnaround of a software company of Yahoo's scale? Mayer has been tech news' pinata for over a year now, but the company was sliding before she was even hired. Looking through a list of dead Yahoo services, it reads as an obituary of region specific social networking sites and forgettable web services[1]. Social sites are notoriously fickle, and boosting one to popularity is somewhat…

Pretty much any tech company that made it out of the Tech Fraud of the 90s and is still alive. Yahoo just never managed to do anything but keep it's head above water for all those years and is now just simply running out of the momentum to continue doing so.

Mayer has not been a pinata, blame the board for hiring her if you want, but her job was to come in and restructure and turn the company around. She simply does not have the skills to do that and her coat tail riding at Google was not going to help.

It's a rather core problem in the valley, pervasive and endemic post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy, i.e., since startup A is successful, that success must have come from the people involved. It totally ignores systemic shifts, inevitable developments, marketing and PR bullshit, and just plain stupid luck. It's why the whole tech sector relies on constant injections of cash or an exit by a giant that is swimming in cash and doesn't mind squandering it on fueling the tech nonsense.

Mayer's "success" was solely derived from the "success" that google has had, which is simply based on a mixture of dumb luck and the single real success, a search engine and infrastructure that is good enough to beat all others and is used as a vehicle for ad revenue.

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

#136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice strategy. I wonder why others didn't do it.

Most people have no idea how to buy puts or collars.

When you just sold your company for a billion dollars, there's no excuse to be ignorant of all the options (ha) at your disposal. If you don't know about puts or collars, you should have an advisor who tells you about them.

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

#137
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well, you're right in the sense that it's absurd. :) But unfortunately it's also the law.

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

#138
post #31

Has there ever been a successful turnaround of a software company of Yahoo's scale? Mayer has been tech news' pinata for over a year now, but the company was sliding before she was even hired. Looking through a list of dead Yahoo services, it reads as an obituary of region specific social networking sites and forgettable web services[1]. Social sites are notoriously fickle, and boosting one to popularity is somewhat…

Regarding OSS - Yahoo was behind Hadoop, the platform for big data and distributed computing. HBase, Spark, Storm, etc. are all built on top of Hadoop. Gotta give them credit for that one.

Sure, but Doug started that at Yahoo some 12 years ago now... I don't relish Yahoo's demise, but Hadoop isn't a great example of recent yahoo innovation....

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

#139

"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.

I don't think there is a major problem with Yahoo products. I tried Yahoo mail yesterday and the signup process was nice. It looks like a viable alternative to gmail.

Google is a nicer name, it comes from googol which gives it some math meaning beyond the sound. Yahoo is only an onomatopoeia that sounds dumb to me (I am not a native English speaker though). Also, if you look in the dictionnary (http://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/yahoo):

    yahoo:

    a rude, loud, unpleasant person, especially one who has little education

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

#140

Whatever the price will be, it won't be the $44.6 billion MS offered back in the days. Shareholders are probably furious at Yang for turning that offer down.

That would have been another shit move by Ballmer. He already destroyed Nokia and cost MS a fortune.

Let's hope LinkedIn brings value with a deeper integration in office.

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