Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon • Hacker News Board

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#341

Post by jjnoakes » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 12:18 AM UTC

speeder wrote: post #333

jjnoakes wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I don't buy any of this.

The startup that own the MacMini: http://www.kidoteca.com Screenshot of my desktop, with MacMini about screen, and smartctl -a /dev/disk0/ http://imgur.com/a/61brQ You want my bank account screenshot too? I can tell you how much it has (positive 37.71 BRL, overdraft is disabled) I honestly doesn't understand why people think I am coming up with lies, I didn't asked for anything, I just shared an anecdote, I am not be…

You are entitled to write whatever you please, and I am entitled to not believe you.

I personally think it is insulting to hear someone with obvious means say they literally can't afford to eat when most of this world actually can't afford to eat and don't have the luxury to post about it on hacker news while running their own web site, playing the latest video games, ...

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#342

Post by ryanmarsh » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 1:00 AM UTC

evmar wrote: post #289

ryanmarsh wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This. I hate my job but tell me some other way I can make $300k (I'm basically doing management consulting). I'm 38 with 3 kids and my wife doesn't earn an income (she homeschools the kids). I suck it up so they're well provided for.

300k is nearly 6 times the median US income, and even the median US income is double that of high-quality-of-life places like Germany. Literally most of the planet has happy families with significantly less money than that. It's facile of me to diagnose your life over the internet but I often think of the deathbed quote: "I wish I had earned more money and spent less time with my family" -- no one ever

That's just evidence that wages are low. Seriously. If I make 6 times the median, we have a problem in this country. I don't know how you buy groceries for a family and pay for healthcare on 50k / yr.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#343

Post by ryanmarsh » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 1:05 AM UTC

geodel wrote: post #302

evmar wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

300k is nearly 6 times the median US income, and even the median US income is double that of high-quality-of-life places like Germany. Literally most of the planet has happy families with significantly less money than that. It's facile of me to diagnose your life over the internet but I often think of the deathbed quote: "I wish I had earned more money and spent less time with my family" -- no one ever

I think that deathbed quote is more about people who had reasonably successful life and had family. I doubt that 100s of millions in 3rd world dying in penury with no family to talk of would make similar statements. Perhaps their statements would be so pedestrian as not to be noted down.

I dated a Columbian girl (an illegal actually) before I met my wife. I remember one day she slapped me across the face and with tears of anger made it clear how stupid I was. My mistake? Uttering the bullshit platitude: "better to be poor and happy than rich and miserable". She said, "you don't know what poor is, we couldn't even afford a toothbrush. We weren't happy we were miserable. How dare you."

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#344

Post by billskills » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 1:36 AM UTC

function_seven wrote: post #101

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…

Out of curiosity, which Verizon did you work for? The former MCI/Worldcom unit ("VZ Business"), the GTE/Bell Atlantic one (Landline, FiOS, etc.), or Verizon Wireless? As far as I know, that company has remained fairly fractured, and operated as if they were three different companies.

vzw actually is a different company, which is partly owned by vz. Fba/fgte are practically separate companies too. I worked for fba (former bell Atlantic) for years and can attest, it's no place for capable doers. It's unbelievable how many layers of dysfunctional middle management are in there, supported only by the fact that vz owns so much legacy infrastructure.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#345

Post by function_seven » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 2:01 AM UTC

billskills wrote: post #344

function_seven wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Out of curiosity, which Verizon did you work for? The former MCI/Worldcom unit ("VZ Business"), the GTE/Bell Atlantic one (Landline, FiOS, etc.), or Verizon Wireless? As far as I know, that company has remained fairly fractured, and operated as if they were three different companies.

vzw actually is a different company, which is partly owned by vz. Fba/fgte are practically separate companies too. I worked for fba (former bell Atlantic) for years and can attest, it's no place for capable doers. It's unbelievable how many layers of dysfunctional middle management are in there, supported only by the fact that vz owns so much legacy infrastructure.

Who owns the rest of it? I know Vodafone used to, but VZ bought their share out a couple years ago.

Totally agreed on BA/GTE. I used to contract on the GTE side of the house, and I saw how little it mattered whether you were good or bad at your job. All reports I hear from the new Frontier sound like it's even worse now.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#346

Post by MertsA » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 2:58 AM UTC

mysterydip wrote: post #161

phaedrix wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Direct URL to opt-out: https://wbillpay.verizonwireless.com/vzw/secure/setPrivacy.a...

Ironically, it makes me log in with my "username or mobile number" even though they know exactly who I am from the unique ID I'm trying to opt out of having :)

Anyone could send that header and claim to be anyone they want to be. They couldn't use that header to authenticate you even if they wanted to.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#347

Post by no1ne » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 4:04 AM UTC

epmatsw wrote: post #263

fleaflicker wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does everyone keep pointing out Mayer's compensation on this deal? Nobody said a word about the $200M that went Tim Armstrong's way in the Aol deal. [1] Can't help but think that if Yahoo had a male ceo nobody would be making these comments. [1] http://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanvardi/2015/05/12/tim-armst...

I think that's probably true, but I bet not directly. People know her name because she is a woman who is a CEO (which unfortunately is still noteworthy), and people note her compensation because they know her name. Who has even heard of Tim Armstrong?

People know her name only because the media forced it down our throats since she is a woman.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#348

Post by basch » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 5:13 AM UTC

peeters wrote: post #279

colmvp wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just find it odd that so many people on HN give Mayer a pass for failing to turn it around because no one could turn it around. I suggest reading the various articles that were written about her in 2015. From what I've read of her tenure, this isn't a case of an MVP who didn't have enough support. Mayer being a bad hire / performing poorly AND Yahoo being at a point of no return can certainly co-exist with one anot…

> Mayer being a bad hire / performing poorly AND Yahoo being at a point of no return can certainly co-exist with one another. Sure they can, but if Yahoo really was at the point of no return, then it ultimately being sold for parts can't (in isolation) be used as an indicator of her performance. I remember when she took the helm thinking that it would take an unbelievable feat from anybody to turn that company around…

I think it is crazy to say Yahoo was a sinking ship unable to be made buoyant. The number one thing they have going for them is Name/Legacy Habit. People still yahoo just because they still do. You could have let 90% off the company go, destroyed all the technology (but not the data, always import it into the new systems to not alienate long term customers) and started over.

Instead she decided she wanted to be a newspaper/tv channel, instead of a tech company. Look at the trajectory Medium.com has taken, or wordpress, even atavist. Vox Chorus and Gawker Kinja. Instead yahoo chose to continue to compete with about.com as a crappy content mill / 2nd layer newswire.

Yahoo Fantasy and Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Messenger and Flickr were all basically left to die. There was really no reason NOT to clone FBMessenger/Line/WeChat/QQ/WhatsApp. They should have been adding features to Finance and Messenger every week.

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#349

Post by basch » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 5:28 AM UTC

paganel wrote: post #204

subsection1h wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you seriously suggesting that when Microsoft made its final offer in 2008, Yahoo was one of "the hottest tech companies"?

Not the OP, but I remember that from a developer's perspective (mine) Yahoo was pretty hot back in 2006-2007. Their dev center and API's were on par with Google's, if not better, while Yahoo Pipes was a very cool and interesting thing which has not been successfully replicated until now. Companies like FB were cool only because they had an exponential user growth and because of the rumors of them poaching engineers f…

who is replicating pipes?

Re: Yahoo sold to US telecoms giant Verizon

#350

Post by basch » Tue, Jul 26, 2016, 5:33 AM UTC

andy_ppp wrote: post #47

What the hell has Marissa Mayer been paid for? Everything about this smells like Yahoo! is being run by idiot MBAs with some spreadsheets somewhere totally misunderstanding that technology can empower people to do fantastic things including those working within Yahoo! - instead it's been hamstrung by each property not being held accountable to it's competitors effectively. I would have started competitors (startups)…

I had the same thing to say (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11916156), it just amazes me they didnt attempt to netflix themselves (replace dvd mail with streaming.) They had literal piles of money from good investments, and a HUGE userbase of people who still use their product out of habit. They almost couldnt have been in a more perfect place to reinvent themselves, and dominate multiple markets.