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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

#311

Post by [deleted] »

ACow_Adonis wrote: post #239
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 can't speak for the rest of HN, but part of the "bashing" of Mayer is not just a personal attack on her, but a critique of our entire culture and economic system. At the end of the day, she'll receive multiple millions of dollars for doing and achieving nothing. Not a bad job of you can get it, but the phenomenon itself seems eminentl, judiciously and justifiably open to criticism to me. She's just another caricatu…

[deleted]

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

#312

Post by jannes »

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.

They even own Techcrunch, which appears regularly on here

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

#313

Post by ianderf »

stanleydrew wrote: post #116
idlewords wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She was very well compensated for her time sinking Yahoo. I think this kind of tone policing is unhealthy.

Upvoted since I think this discussion might be interesting. I'm wondering why people focus on financial compensation so much? Why does how much someone was paid justify more or less bashing, as the case might be? And what's unhealthy about tone policing? I'll leave aside the way you've negatively framed my attempt to steer the conversation in a more positive direction, and just say that I don't see what the purpose o…

> I'm wondering why people focus on financial compensation so much?

I think that it's unjust when people are paid crazy money for doing poor job. As well as when people are paid little money for good job.

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

#314

Post by cpeterso »

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…

> Are there other alternatives besides DDG, StartPage, Yandex and Bing?

StartPage is just anonymized Google results and DDG is an anonymized mashup of Bing, Yandex, and other sources.

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

#315

Post by sonink »

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.

If a CEO doesnt perform, she is accountable. If multiple CEO's dont perform, it is the board who must be held accountable.

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

#316

Post by speaktruth »

stanleydrew wrote: post #227
speaktruth wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly do you want to accomplish with this comment? Are you really suggesting that we shouldn't analyze and criticize Marissa for failing? Why is it important to you to create a safe space for this CEO? This CEO had a very self-confident attitude but in the end got nothing right. There were no signs progress and development with her and the company. She showed no intrinsic focus and absolutely no creativity. An…

> What exactly do you want to accomplish with this comment? Reduction in unsubstantiated nasty comments. A better conversation. > Are you really suggesting that we shouldn't analyze and criticize Marissa for failing? No, I'm not suggesting that. > Why is it important to you to create a safe space for this CEO? I'm not. > And what are this big risks you are talking about? Attempting to save a company that appeared at…

> Reduction in unsubstantiated nasty comments. A better conversation.

At the time you wrote this, there where zero nasty comments. Not even substantiated ones.

> Attempting to save a company that appeared at the time to be completely unsaveable.

Why do make that claim? This and similar is repeated here often: "A sinking ship", "Could not be saved even by Jesus", ... This is completely wrong! Either a company is beyond repair, then no respectable CEO would play the hero here. Or it shows potential for some kind of transformation process, where the company can find a new and successful purpose. In both cases the company is in a fragile state, because it is very hard to measure its true value. It's in a situation that is opposite to a very promising company: there is a chance that this company is underhyped. Yahoo was underhyped and underestimated, probably also by Marissa Meyer.

> Why not? What's different about that league compared to the one you and I play in?

Let me use an analogy here: When you and I are football players, then Marissa would have been our trainer. The problem is that the compensation plan made her also some kind of a Ronaldo.

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

#317

Post by nadim »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #285
nadim wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ads on flickr wrecked it 4 me

Would you pay for a (higher) subscription?

No I don't even have any photos on there I just use it to browse photography stuff and the ads are tasteless. Yes I realize it's not free to run. I'm still not a fan of this change and think there must be a better way.

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

#318

Post by speaktruth »

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…

Appendum: When I said "She is overrated at an almost fraudulent level." I meant the she and other people from the board created an image of superiority around Meyer, that led to and justified a fantastic compensation plan. Then when you compare this fantasy image to her real accomplishments, the term "delusion" would not be wrong. And at a certain level of delusion, we can also name it fraud. Yes, I think this is fraud.

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

#319

Post by TheOtherHobbes »

jon-wood wrote: post #308
cli wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

If that's really the case then Silicon Valley salaries have gone through the floor recently. That would be considered an insulting salary for a developer in London, in GBP.

If you search for web designer jobs in the UK on Indeed, most jobs are in the £25k to £30k range, with a slightly smaller selection between £30k and £35k.

London may be in a class of its own, but elsewhere in the UK £35k is considered decent money.

https://www.indeed.co.uk/jobs?q=Web+Design&l=

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

#320

Post by bastardoperator »

empath75 wrote: post #281
gnicholas wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Yahoo is more or less going to be folded into aol, actually.

I also heard the recent AOL layoffs had much to do with duplicate positions at Yahoo and that Yahoo will fall under the AOL umbrella.
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