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Verizon Explores Lower Price or Even Exit from Yahoo Deal

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Re: Verizon Explores Lower Price or Even Exit from Yahoo Deal

#91

Yahoo controls 8% of search traffic and costs $4bn. Google controls 64% of search traffic and costs $558bn. That's a 17-fold difference in the price for 1% of the traffic. Even more if you take US search traffic only (to exclude Yahoo Japan). Verizon can get rid of the costly parts of Yahoo (mostly its media business) and have its own small Google to make cash. That was $1.8bn per year in 2015, while Yahoo's overall…

Y! search marketshare is falling. I don't have the numbers in front of me, but I seem to remember their search revenue falling faster than marketshare, ie even their revenue per search is declining. Lots of Y!'s money from display/brand advertising on their site families, which is why Y! mail is so crucial. Unlike google where display ad revenue is on other sites, Y display ad revenue is on their sites: mail, dating, news, finance, sports, etc. Y! mail in particular was a key leg of this monetization strategy which is why its neglect is so appalling from a financial perspective. See also the giant RMX fuckup -- Y! should have been ADX/appnexus but yahoo did what yahoo does.

Re: Verizon Explores Lower Price or Even Exit from Yahoo Deal

#92
post #21

Yahoo controls 8% of search traffic and costs $4bn. Google controls 64% of search traffic and costs $558bn. That's a 17-fold difference in the price for 1% of the traffic. Even more if you take US search traffic only (to exclude Yahoo Japan). Verizon can get rid of the costly parts of Yahoo (mostly its media business) and have its own small Google to make cash. That was $1.8bn per year in 2015, while Yahoo's overall…

Yahoo lost $650 million last quarter, why do you think anyone would take the deal in the first place?

They make plenty of money gross. Fire 80% of the staff and they'll be very profitable net as well.

Re: Verizon Explores Lower Price or Even Exit from Yahoo Deal

#93
post #73
post #57

One benefit of these incidents at Yahoo! is that they represent salient, clear examples of the cost of poor information security. CIOs and security directors will be able to point to this deal as evidence that poor security can have material impact on the business and destroy massive shareholder value, even years after the fact. A 6.5% intra-day dip sends a clear message. Even a CFO can now see that information secur…

Yeah I mean the cost has always been there but this is the first time I recall lots of media coverage around the reality that incidents like this can cost billions, seems like it's finally sinking in.

I wonder how much this is influenced by shows like Mr. Robot where the entire plot revolves around infosec bringing down the world's massivest corporation.

Of course Mr. Robot could itself be a symptom of the zeitgeist.

Re: Verizon Explores Lower Price or Even Exit from Yahoo Deal

#94
post #61
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IP. Yahoo!'s patents are valued between $4B and $8B, depending on who you ask.

What if you ask Verizon?

If you ask Verizon, this leak was a great way to get a better price on a deal they already wanted to have happen.

Re: Verizon Explores Lower Price or Even Exit from Yahoo Deal

#95
post #50

Yahoo controls 8% of search traffic and costs $4bn. Google controls 64% of search traffic and costs $558bn. That's a 17-fold difference in the price for 1% of the traffic. Even more if you take US search traffic only (to exclude Yahoo Japan). Verizon can get rid of the costly parts of Yahoo (mostly its media business) and have its own small Google to make cash. That was $1.8bn per year in 2015, while Yahoo's overall…

That's like saying Apple is worth $600 billion, Motorola is worth "only $12 billion", but has 1/10 of Apple's market share, so therefore it must be a great deal to buy Motorola. Wait, actually that's exactly what Google thought - and they quickly saw the error in that sort of thinking after they purchased it. Do you see how that argument is flawed? Leaders in a market tend to be worth much more and have much higher p…

I don't recall any analysis of the Google/Motorola deal pointing to a rationalization like this. I do recall Motorola's CEO announcing on an earnings call that if Motorola didn't soon find market sucess with Android it would be willing to start suing other Android ODM partners with its patnet portfolio. Given how quickly Google cancelled all its other product lines, and even sold off the cable box and network equipment business, and then finally sold to Lenovo, it seems like it was always clear in retrospect that Google bought Motorola to peaceably unwind without causing a civil war to the whole platform ecosystem they were building. That being said, I think you did very accurately call out the parent comment's reasoning and exactly what's wrong with it in cases like this. When companies are at a deep, deep discount to their market-leading peers there's usually a reason.

Re: Verizon Explores Lower Price or Even Exit from Yahoo Deal

#96

Yahoo controls 8% of search traffic and costs $4bn. Google controls 64% of search traffic and costs $558bn. That's a 17-fold difference in the price for 1% of the traffic. Even more if you take US search traffic only (to exclude Yahoo Japan). Verizon can get rid of the costly parts of Yahoo (mostly its media business) and have its own small Google to make cash. That was $1.8bn per year in 2015, while Yahoo's overall…

Yahoo! earns less than Google per search [1], has few other properties, is trashing its already-moribund brand and keeps growing its legal liabilities. Consider, too, the political/headline risk Verizon would inherit. Yahoo! (like Twitter, in my opinion) may only find a buyer in that sort of financial purchaser who doesn't mind looking bad resurrecting corpses. Unfortunately, those bidders are notorious low ballers.…

Private equity turn around guys that slash the employee base, take on massive debt, restructure everything but often extract a lot of value. I can see it happening.

Re: Verizon Explores Lower Price or Even Exit from Yahoo Deal

#97
post #92
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yahoo lost $650 million last quarter, why do you think anyone would take the deal in the first place?

They make plenty of money gross. Fire 80% of the staff and they'll be very profitable net as well.

You are assuming that other costs apart from salaries are negligible and that firing 80% of the staff will have negligible effect on revenue.

They are pretty big assumptions to make.

Re: Verizon Explores Lower Price or Even Exit from Yahoo Deal

#98
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's a fair, justified opinion to have. But attacking someone who holds a contrary opinion for having ulterior motives is an extremely uncharitable thing to do.

It wasn't an attack and my summation was correct as he has friends that work there.

how can you work in tech and not have "a connection" to yahoo?

also how is your comment not an attack? you're saying his opinion is tainted... because he knows people who work at yahoo? does that mean no one can have a fair opinion on apple, amazon, google, microsoft?

Re: Verizon Explores Lower Price or Even Exit from Yahoo Deal

#99
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's a fair, justified opinion to have. But attacking someone who holds a contrary opinion for having ulterior motives is an extremely uncharitable thing to do.

It wasn't an attack and my summation was correct as he has friends that work there.

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Re: Verizon Explores Lower Price or Even Exit from Yahoo Deal

#100
post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps there's scope for a tumblr mirror, which could eventually take over from real-tumblr (and allow the blog owners to continue blogging) in the event that real-tumblr goes all geocities.

I feel like that would be a TOS violation.

[deleted]
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