Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon • Hacker News Board

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#181

Post by RA_Fisher » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 3:04 AM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #147

rayiner wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the underlying principle there? That infrastructure providers shouldn't be in potential competition with companies that use their infrastructure as part of their own business model? By that logic, should Apple, Google, and Microsoft be required to get out of the hardware business? How would application of that principle affect things like app stores or Facebook's platform, or even Valve's Steam for that matter…

Standard Oil. Extraction. Transport. Refining. Distribution. Sale. Seemed to result in some issues as I recall. Mixing common-carrier status with provider-of-goods is quite inherently problematic. I've got some pretty strong issues with Google's status as both search provider and other services, or with their dominant position in infrastructure, services, operating systems, applications marketplace, and on a growing…

Standard Oil may have accrued monopoly power, but at least to me it's not a foregone conclusion the company should have broken up. Yes, indeed, Rockefeller consolidated industries and bought many competitors, but he was also a master of efficiency and cost-savings. If it weren't for the break-up we might have had lower cost petroleum and as a result greater economic prosperity.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#182

Post by manigandham » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 3:05 AM UTC

droopybuns wrote: post #174

manigandham wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> User count should not ever be exponential of customer counts. This makes no sense. This is the backbone of the entire internet. Ethics and the value that users get from a company/service are all subjective, there's no hard rule that you can lay down like this.

It makes plenty of sense. I am annoyed that you cast me as illogical simply because you disagree. Something has changed in modern discourse and your reaction has become distressingly common. Here is an article from 2012, enumerating the same point: http://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/03/05/if-youre-... Here is another from 2010: http://lifehacker.com/5697167/if-youre-not-paying-for-it-you... If this is a new…

This isn't a new idea or theory, it's older than the internet itself. So what?

This is a tired argument that doesn't really make a point. People being "the product" isn't some inherently bad thing. These platforms have so many engaged users because they do actually deliver value to those users, whether you think so or not.

Maybe you want to pay for a social network but others want it free and are fine with the trade-off. Both perspectives are fine and what's important is that you have a choice, but saying that "user counts should never be exponential of customer counts" still makes no sense as it not up to you to decide everyone else's fate. Does that really seem logical to you?

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#183

Post by ethbro » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 3:06 AM UTC

dpark wrote: post #176

vijayp wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, YHOO's total market cap is now about $37.36B, so it's not a complete travesty. (MSFT would have gotten the Alibaba investment with the $45B offer)

Eh, it's a pretty complete travesty. 8 years later the stock is still almost 20% below the $45B offer price, which was by the way a 60% premium over the market cap at the time. I still have trouble wrapping my head around why Microsoft even made the offer, but I have even more trouble understanding why Yahoo rejected it.

MS: Yahoo says they're worth way more than we can figure out. They must know something we don't. Offer them a premium!

Yahoo: MS offered us way more than we can figure out we're worth. They must know something we don't. Reject the offer and we'll monetize it ourselves!

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#184

Post by ptio » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 3:08 AM UTC

tootie wrote: post #144

ptio wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note that Verizon has a division - Product Innovation and New Business - that is run separate from the telco business that you are mentioning. In recent years Verizon has acquired technology companies EdgeCast Networks (CDN) and upLynk (Video Streaming) which form the core of Verizon's Digital Media Services [1]. Combining these assets with AOL (AdTech) and Yahoo (if the deal happens) gives Verizon an end-to-end plat…

Does any of that give it customers?

Hi, can you elaborate more on what you are asking?

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#185

Post by BinaryIdiot » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 3:17 AM UTC

TheMagicHorsey wrote: post #64

I did a little work as a developer for Verizon's ecosystem back in 2007. Let me just say, from what I could see, they were a huge, bureaucratic company without a single redeeming cultural trait. The managers seemed like a bunch of frat boys who had been raised up into positions of authority through some inscrutable lottery, and none of them seemed to possess an iota of analytical capability or human management talent…

I hear similar complaints with other companies. I know at the last large company I worked for there was lots of this but also other groups who were better / different. Hard to stereotype a huge company like Verizon as one specific way of operating.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#186

Post by jonknee » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 3:20 AM UTC

dchest wrote: post #9

cs702 wrote: post #4

Less than the $5.7 billion Yahoo! paid in 1999 for Mark Cuban's Broadcast.com: http://money.cnn.com/1999/04/01/deals/yahoo/ Times -- and fortunes -- change.

Adjusted for inflation, $8.2 billion in 2016 dollars.

Adjusted for stock returns (since it was an all stock deal), $1.3b. And that includes the huge Alibaba stake that is most of Yahoo's value, if that deal never happened and Yahoo was just what Verizon bought the total would be ~$169m.

Mark was smart and bought puts to protect his stake and then sold it so that he wasn't tied to Yahoo. In retrospect he was really smart.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#187

Post by aluminussoma » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 3:24 AM UTC

ubersync wrote: post #137

Why isn't this mentioned/discussed anywhere. In 2008 Microsoft offered $45 Billion to acquire Yahoo. Then Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang rejected the offer, saying that the bid "substantially undervalues Yahoo." Microsoft raised the bid to 50 Billion, and it was yet again rejected. After that MS withdrew its bid. 8 years later, at 10% the original offer!

Not quite. Yahoo's value at the time was still substantially undervalued. Don't forget Yahoo sold off a piece of their Alibaba stake after the bid - some estimates say had Yahoo held on to it, they would be worth much more today.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#188

Post by droopybuns » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 3:38 AM UTC

manigandham wrote: post #182

droopybuns wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes plenty of sense. I am annoyed that you cast me as illogical simply because you disagree. Something has changed in modern discourse and your reaction has become distressingly common. Here is an article from 2012, enumerating the same point: http://www.forbes.com/sites/marketshare/2012/03/05/if-youre-... Here is another from 2010: http://lifehacker.com/5697167/if-youre-not-paying-for-it-you... If this is a new…

This isn't a new idea or theory, it's older than the internet itself. So what? This is a tired argument that doesn't really make a point. People being "the product" isn't some inherently bad thing. These platforms have so many engaged users because they do actually deliver value to those users, whether you think so or not. Maybe you want to pay for a social network but others want it free and are fine with the trade-…

Strawman.

>>it not up to you to decide everyone else's fate

I'm not asking anyone to live to my values. Many others share them.

I think the point that users should not exceed customers is easy to understand. Many people agree with me. Many others dont.

I have turned down an offer at Google because I couldn't reconcile the bad stuff. I wish more people agreed with me, but I don't say that those who don't are illogical. They simply have different values. That is OK if you value diversity.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#189

Post by droopybuns » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 3:40 AM UTC

ericd wrote: post #177

droopybuns wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google users number in the billions. Paying Google customers number in the millions. For example Google drive: http://fortune.com/2015/09/21/google-drive-1m-paid-users/ W/r/t ads: the carriers who are aggregating anonymous useage data and reselling it are not revolutionizing their revenue. They are deflating the value of ads. This cuts into Google profit margins.

The problem is that exponential implies a difference in growth rate. Clearer would be to say that user counts should never many orders of magnitude greater than paying customer counts. I don't agree with this, but it's clearer.

I concede your point. Exponential doesn't provide clarity where I want it.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#190

Post by kennywinker » Mon, Jul 25, 2016, 3:42 AM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #73

kennywinker wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's turns out valuations are imaginary numbers that mean nothing? I once sold a $1 beer to a friend for $2. Let's back-of-the envelope that: 100% markup, $1 profit. If I buy and sell 1 billion beers per year, that's a profit of $1B/year. Ok, so given a 5 year return on investment, that means my beer business is valued at $5 billion. Nice! Anybody interested in investing please get in touch I'm raising a series A.

> I once sold a $1 beer to a friend for $2. Let's back-of-the envelope that: 100% markup, $1 profit. If I buy and sell 1 billion beers per year, that's a profit of $1B/year. Ok, so given a 5 year return on investment, that means my beer business is valued at $5 billion. And if you've convinced enough people that this is the case, so you get at least a few million dollars in investment, that would mean your company in…

I was being facetious. My point was to deminstrate a business that is clearly not worth 5b, but calculate myself a $5b valuation. Most real workd examples are more grounded than mine but still these are imaginary numbers.