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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

#271
post #110
post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on your social circle.

Stats don't lie. What is the market share of macOS and Linux? I use macOS myself and I can't live without it, but that does not at all reflect the big picture.

Lies, damned lies, and statistics. What market are we talking about? My family hasn't bought a Windows machine since 2001.

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

#272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course not, but then when I failed which would have been pre-ordained and actually entirely foreseeable, bashing me here would NOT be really, really pointless and sad . However, if you are respecting her for picking up a paycheck, that is your right.

I think it's pointless and sad to bash her because, once again, I don't think it can reasonably be said that somebody else had the expertise to save Yahoo. We'll never know, of course. Also, being the CEO of an "old and out of touch" company with services that only grannies use nowadays leaves you open to lots of undeserved bashing. So bashing her is easy. But she should be bashed if she was a bad CEO (which she wasn…

This "bashing" seems to be an attempt to deflect any and all criticism of her countless mistakes at Yahoo! - not least of which was that they helped leak vast swathes of personal data due to their CEO's reckless indifference to security.

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

#273
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.

AOL was acquired by Verizon, so in a sense they still exist, but in another sense not. They did own/operate HuffPo, Engadget, and other properties for some time prior to the Verizon acquisition.

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

#274

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.

As an enthusiast photographer, she did one great thing in my book: She oversaw the attempted revitalization of Flickr. The old Flickr product and UI had stagnated for the better part of a decade, and under her administration, Yahoo rebooted a lot of the core experience. Some parts were rebooted more successfully than others, but on the balance, it was for the better.

If I may use the full benefits of hindsight, I wonder if Yahoo, instead of Google, ought to have been the company to go all-in on a social network competitor to facebook, (and I don't mean 360°). Yahoo had more organic components of a social community across its properties than Google ever did. If they wanted to mature into something that was more than a media company, that seems to me like the path to take.

Of course it's easy to say that. I have much more faith in Google's ability to execute on that front than Yahoo, and look what happened to G+. So who knows if they could have done it right.

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

#275
post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She ousted a sitting first term PM through backroom deals to make herself PM. This kicked off a decade where the Prime Ministers office had to get a revolving door installed.

facepalm this whole time I thought we were talking about Marissa Mayer, and that PM was referring to project manager or something.

I don't blame you. In Australia we have had a marathon run of the most monumental moments of bastardry, incompetence, bigotry and squandering of opportunities. I mean, this inevitably happens at the best of times but we got Rudd (who was, for his flaws, quite visionary), then Gillard who ousted him because of the negativity of Tony Abbott. Then we got Tony Abbott because of the way Gillard and co. shafted Rudd. Abbott, it turns out, was more arrogant, had less ability to govern, showed what those who watched him over the years already knew: he has terrible judgement, and thus led the least successful government of any era in Australia and lasted less time in the job than either Gillard or Rudd before Turnbull (who Abbott had actually ousted when in opposition) ousted him.

The Turnbull government has no chance of doing anything other than warm the seats for the next bunch.

So I sort of wish this was only Yahoo we were speaking about, but it's not: it's Australia's Federal Government and every Australian is currently looking into the abyss as the likes of Brandis, Dutton, Morrison, Barnaby Joyce, George Christianson and Eric Abetz destroy our society and economy for their own personal agendas.

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

#276

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 think there is absolutely no indication that anybody, other than Jesus Christ himself descending from the skies mounted on a Harley Davidson in flames, could have saved Yahoo. So, bashing Marissa here would be really, really pointless and sad.

[deleted]

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

#277

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.

She made over $200M in salary over four years. Her risk was zero. I can see no analog here for anything a normal human being would recognize as a challenge despite tough odds.

[deleted]

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

#278
post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For sure. For perspective, that's around 2000X more than an average tech salary in Silicon Valley. I'd be thrilled to [Not Turn Around Yahoo] for that much money. Hell, I could have done it for a fraction of the cost!

Did you add an extra 0? The average programmer salary is around $27,000 per year in Silicon Valley?

I suspect they simply didn't divide by four as you have...

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

#279

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.

>bashing of Marissa that will undoubtedly unfurl on this thread

Can we say something about the Tumblr acquisition?

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

#280
post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is absolutely no indication that anybody, other than Jesus Christ himself descending from the skies mounted on a Harley Davidson in flames, could have saved Yahoo. So, bashing Marissa here would be really, really pointless and sad.

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…

The problem is that Yahoo was never a media company, either. They never had a lot of success in media, at least not past their early properties like Finance and Autos. They failed to do anything meaningful with video, or mobile, or flickr, or much of anything past their early success.

Yahoo tried to be a media company for years. They called themselves "the premier media company". They had two different CEOs pulled from the media world, Terry Semel and Ross Levinsohn. Levinsohn didn't really have much time, but Semel did. If Yahoo was a media company, they were unsuccessful at it.

I always wanted Yahoo to rebound. I worked there for a few years and my team seemed quite good. But there was always the problem that the company didn't quite seem to know what it was trying to do. It didn't have a real plan for winning back search nor for winning in media, and it didn't have deep enough pockets to dig indefinitely. What it had were initiatives like Livestand that failed to compete with apps like Flipboard and an ad network that never competed with AdSense despite Yahoo actually buying Overture.

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