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Yahoo SEC Filing: Name change to Altaba Inc and director resignations

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Re: Yahoo SEC Filing: Name change to Altaba Inc and director resignations

#251

Post by nadim »

speaktruth wrote: post #191
jinglbox wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Steve Jobs worked himself to the bone and took zero money for years when he was trying to save Apple. That's what a good faith effort looks like. If he had failed he would have wasted years and got nothing in return. If Mayer had done this I would be impressed. But Mayer had no vision, didn't put in the effort required, and milked Yahoo for a hundred million dollars she didn't earn. Silicon Valley loves failure like…

"... milked Yahoo for a hundred million dollars she didn't earn." "Marissa Mayer's failure at Yahoo was caused by pure incompetence, negligence, and laziness of all involved. Nothing about it that deserves praise." I just wanted to thank you for this comment, because it is important that we get the facts straight. There was not one thing she brought in the company that showed a hint to financial success. She is overr…

What facts are you referring to and what does overrated at a fraudulent level mean?

Re: Yahoo SEC Filing: Name change to Altaba Inc and director resignations

#252

Post by gozur88 »

jinglbox wrote: post #113
stanleydrew wrote: post #22

Rather than the inevitable bashing of Marissa that will undoubtedly unfurl on this thread, I'd like to put in a little reminder that we usually celebrate taking on big projects and big risks and that we should commend her for taking on the immense challenge of steadying the Yahoo ship. Yes, she wasn't able to keep the ship from sinking. But I do think she put in a good-faith effort.

Steve Jobs worked himself to the bone and took zero money for years when he was trying to save Apple. That's what a good faith effort looks like. If he had failed he would have wasted years and got nothing in return. If Mayer had done this I would be impressed. But Mayer had no vision, didn't put in the effort required, and milked Yahoo for a hundred million dollars she didn't earn. Silicon Valley loves failure like…

As one of the founders, Jobs had an emotional investment in Apple you could never expect from an outsider brought in to helm a mature company.

The problem with Yahoo is nobody knows what the company does. I don't see how anybody could have turned what amounts to a couple popular news websites into something like Google or Apple without engaging in some kind of very-low-odds moon shot.

What they probably should have done was liquidated the company. The web sites would have fetched top dollar, and the company has technical expertise in business units that seem to be pretty much wasted at this point.

Re: Yahoo SEC Filing: Name change to Altaba Inc and director resignations

#253

Post by EpicEng »

jinglbox wrote: post #154
prostoalex wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If he had failed he would have wasted years and got nothing in return. Steve Jobs' personal wealth is mainly from Pixar (acquired by Disney) and less from Apple, especially after SEC shut down the goldmine of backdated options http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2007/01/snow...

Yes, and he was already rich from previous money he made in Apple's early days. Just like Marissa Mayer was already rich from Google stock. Neither needed the money at all. Jobs knew that and didn't take any. Mayer for some reason took as much as possible.

> for some reason

I know, crazy, like what kind of person would accept that kind of money if offered? It really boggles the mind. Hell, I was offered a raise recently, but I told them no way. I won't play that game!

Re: Yahoo SEC Filing: Name change to Altaba Inc and director resignations

#254

Post by dingo_bat »

sperglord wrote: post #244
nikcub wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that is true. In 2012 Yahoo had $5B a year in revenue and was the second most visited property on the web. When Thompson stepped down the board were given two proposals. The first, revive Yahoo as a premium tech firm lead by someone like Mayer, or 2. admit that Yahoo is now a media co and double down on the verticals where Yahoo is winning - especially those where you can sell premium ads (Finance, Spor…

I was surprised to learn at a conference in October that America Online still exists(!), and this (media) is the route that they took. Apparently they own the Huffington Post and Engadget now.

I'd rather have a failed high tech enterprise than owning huffpo and Engadget.

Re: Yahoo SEC Filing: Name change to Altaba Inc and director resignations

#255

Post by gloverkcn »

dingo_bat wrote: post #254
sperglord wrote: post #244

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was surprised to learn at a conference in October that America Online still exists(!), and this (media) is the route that they took. Apparently they own the Huffington Post and Engadget now.

I'd rather have a failed high tech enterprise than owning huffpo and Engadget.

I know you are being glib, but I'd rather survive and live to fight another day. A company with resources can invest, grow, and contribute.

Re: Yahoo SEC Filing: Name change to Altaba Inc and director resignations

#256

Post by henrikschroder »

normaljoe wrote: post #217
icelancer wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or it was too much inertia to overcome, which is probably a huge factor.

It was both and more. I started there back when Bartz was CEO. Bartz continued down the media company path that was already established. Thompson doubled down and cut huge amount of tech talent to focus on media. Like he literally almost completely killed labs the PhD wing that did research. There are other things that elaborate on that really hurt and created the outcome we see today. When MM started she had no idea…

> Yahoo invented web at scale

This is true, and what Yahoo did in its early days was definitely impressive, but the talent that did it moved on, and was never replaced.

When I joined in 2013, I encountered a lot of systems/processes/whatever that would have been impressive in 2003, but hadn't been updated or replaced in 10 years, and the culture inside Yahoo was still stuck in a weird not-invented-here bubble where a lot of people thought their 2003 tech was still impressive.

Turns out, if you gut the engineering organization over a decade, you end up with a B team, and you're completely unable to attract the A players necessary to keep innovating.

There's a lot of criticism in this thread that Marissa didn't do anything worthwhile, but she sure as hell tried. All those acquisitions? Almost all of them were acquihires, in a desperate attempt to get A players. Most of those didn't stick around very long though, because there's only so much shit and technical debt you can stand, and then the company is out the money, and has very little to show for it. It could have worked, but it didn't.

Re: Yahoo SEC Filing: Name change to Altaba Inc and director resignations

#257

Post by king_kerr »

stanleydrew wrote: post #22

Rather than the inevitable bashing of Marissa that will undoubtedly unfurl on this thread, I'd like to put in a little reminder that we usually celebrate taking on big projects and big risks and that we should commend her for taking on the immense challenge of steadying the Yahoo ship. Yes, she wasn't able to keep the ship from sinking. But I do think she put in a good-faith effort.

Couldn't agree more.

Re: Yahoo SEC Filing: Name change to Altaba Inc and director resignations

#258

Post by LeoPanthera »

sperglord wrote: post #247
riemannzeta wrote: post #83

For those confused, this filing is reporting a name change because the operating business (including its brand, domain name, etc.) is being acquired by Verizon out of what is now Yahoo! Inc. So the Yahoo business, its name, domains, and so on are not going anywhere as a result of this announcement. Altaba is just the name of of the company that will hold the investments that Verizon didn't acquire, including Alibaba…

Haha, Verizon owns America Online as well. Perhaps they're going to collect all relics of the 90's internet into some kind of Voltron monster.

I hope someone at Verizon cares about history and is preserving things for future museums.

Re: Yahoo SEC Filing: Name change to Altaba Inc and director resignations

#259

Post by mtgx »

stanleydrew wrote: post #22

Rather than the inevitable bashing of Marissa that will undoubtedly unfurl on this thread, I'd like to put in a little reminder that we usually celebrate taking on big projects and big risks and that we should commend her for taking on the immense challenge of steadying the Yahoo ship. Yes, she wasn't able to keep the ship from sinking. But I do think she put in a good-faith effort.

I don't blame Marissa for "not saving Yahoo".

I blame her for allowing the NSA to (illegally) get root access to Yahoo's servers so they can spy on everyone whenever they feel like it with no oversight, for doing it behind the security team's backs (not that it matters much in the grand scheme of things, but also shows what kind of person she is), and (perhaps related) allowing 1 billion of Yahoo accounts to be hacked so easily.

So what does this show us? Beyond her failing to "make great new products at Yahoo", which I guess you could argue no one other than Steve Jobs may have been able to do at Yahoo anymore, it shows that she likes to betray not just her colleagues but also the users at the companies she leads. And in the end she ended up getting paid more than handsomely for all of those failures or malicious actions in which she engaged.

So I'll make sure to never ever use a service run by Marissa Mayer and that everyone I know stays away from a company run by her.

Re: Yahoo SEC Filing: Name change to Altaba Inc and director resignations

#260

Post by LeoPanthera »

saycheese wrote: post #73
djsumdog wrote: post #36

I wish there was a real alternative to search. I use DuckDuckGo, but I believe they run on AWS and purchase index data from Yandex et. al. At this point, is it even feasible for anyone to enter the general search market, or has Google simply set the barrier to entry too high? Are there any niche search engines that focus on things Google has either removed or doesn't index? Are there other alternatives besides DDG, S…

DuckDuckGo uses more than 400 sources: https://duck.co/help/results/sources

Actual list of sources: https://duck.co/ia

But these "sources" power the instant answers, and not the main search results.

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