Yahoo misses profit expectations in what could be its last-ever earnings report • Hacker News Board

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

#141

Post by brianbreslin » Tue, Jul 19, 2016, 4:05 PM UTC

chatmasta wrote: post #136

brianbreslin wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

haha true. However was the parent who referenced geocities selling a lot of shares or a small amount? I bet someone selling under a million $ in shares might not have the same advisory level as Mark Cuban.

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

#142

Post by chkuendig » Tue, Jul 19, 2016, 4:29 PM UTC

aerovistae wrote: post #134

majani wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

http://investmentxyz.blogspot.ch/2006/05/cubans-collar-anato...

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

#143

Post by bsbechtel » Tue, Jul 19, 2016, 4:37 PM UTC

phamilton wrote: post #125

bsbechtel wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I think purchasing an investment at below market value implies a subsidy and that subsidy is considered a gain, whether it's via options or not. The key here is timing. In both cases you are buying the stock for $1, but in one case it's officially worth $100. Therefore, you have a taxable gain. That much makes sense. What doesn't make sense is treating an illiquid value the same as a liquid one.

This sounds reasonable, however that subsidy/gain is already paid for with the employee's labor, which cannot be recovered. Paying taxes on what is essentially a guaranteed gain sounds reasonable, but when it is a gain earned by putting in labor over several years, I'm not sure this is the best solution.

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

#144

Post by ddebernardy » Tue, Jul 19, 2016, 5:00 PM UTC

nojvek wrote: post #140

ddebernardy wrote: post #78

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.

From where I'm standing it looks more like a shit move by Ballmer for making the offer and a clusterfuck move by Yang for refusing it. ;-)

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

#145

Post by codingmyway » Tue, Jul 19, 2016, 5:29 PM UTC

I still don't see why Yahoo didn't stick to their original purpose of human powered search instead of buying up random companies to try anything.

All they had to do was work out how to outsource the work to users. Why did they not buy StumbleUpon or PearlTrees, which few have heard of?

That and email would have given them a lot of data on their user base.

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

#146

Post by chansecodina » Tue, Jul 19, 2016, 5:42 PM UTC

neotek wrote: post #84

lsc wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

was it, though? I mean, none of the apple hardware is amazing, and today, it's not even really different, but... the software mostly works, and for computers? that's amazing . I remember in the mid aughts, when I had been working exclusively with linux for some time, I started to see my peers, peers who wouldn't be caught dead with a windows laptop, carrying around os-x laptops. Compared to the ThinkPad of the day, t…

Pretty much all of Apple's hardware is amazing. If you try and evaluate them on specs alone then sure, they fall short - less RAM in their phones, slower clock speeds, whatever - but the vast majority of people don't buy hardware because of its technical specs, they buy hardware because it looks gorgeous, makes them feel special, and performs the tasks they need it to perform. Nobody ever lined up for a week to buy a…

The key part phrase there is "[c]ompared to the ThinkPad of the day". IMHO, MacBooks and ThinkPads were nowhere near comparable in build quality until the the MacBooks went to unibody aluminum construction.

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

#147

Post by dredmorbius » Tue, Jul 19, 2016, 6:51 PM UTC

macintux wrote: post #117

dredmorbius wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Bad luck? Good luck?

http://ymaa.com/articles/stories-proverbs/blessing-in-disgui...

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

#148

Post by shams93 » Tue, Jul 19, 2016, 7:02 PM UTC

a_small_island wrote: post #19

shams93 wrote: post #6

Its taken them a while, all their peers except for Amazon have essential gone to the dust. If Geocities had been bought by say Google instead of Yahoo I could have easily flipped my options into my own startup. However dot bomb hit so hard instead of wealth I was left holding a huge capital gains tax bill that forced me into 10 solid years of hardcore poverty as most of my income was confiscated to pay off the debt.…

Have you written more about this? I would love to read more details.

I should. At the time, you got your stock option, if you were like me, just out of school, you really didn't have the resources to make moves like Cuban.

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

#149

Post by phamilton » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 2:52 AM UTC

bsbechtel wrote: post #143

phamilton wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think purchasing an investment at below market value implies a subsidy and that subsidy is considered a gain, whether it's via options or not. The key here is timing. In both cases you are buying the stock for $1, but in one case it's officially worth $100. Therefore, you have a taxable gain. That much makes sense. What doesn't make sense is treating an illiquid value the same as a liquid one.

This sounds reasonable, however that subsidy/gain is already paid for with the employee's labor, which cannot be recovered. Paying taxes on what is essentially a guaranteed gain sounds reasonable, but when it is a gain earned by putting in labor over several years, I'm not sure this is the best solution.

> subsidy/gain is already paid for with the employee's labor

Salary is gain paid for with labor, and it is taxed. I'm not sure I follow your point.

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

#150

Post by jonathankoren » Wed, Jul 20, 2016, 4:00 AM UTC

infinite8s wrote: post #122

jonathankoren wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's the exercise and hold that gets you. If you do a same day sell, you have the money to cover the taxes immediately, since you sold. If you exercise and hold, you pay the money to exercise, and now owe taxes on the asset at fair market value of the assets when exercised, which you might not have because your bank account is actually decreasing. In the future, if the asset loses value, even if you sold all of it, y…

Except you can't sell if the company is still private.

That's not true. The market it very illiquid, but you can sell it. Sharespost is one place.