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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

#351

Post by hogrammer »

speaktruth wrote: post #173
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.

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…

Women get a pass!

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

#352

Post by Bartweiss »

jaredklewis wrote: post #170
gniv wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's why the responsibility was on the board to find somebody willing and capable of playing Extra Hard.

Obviously if finding good CEOs who would work for free at failing companies was easy, all boards would do that. Turns out it's not.

I'm trying to imagine Jobs taking a 'free' turnaround role somewhere other than Apple. That was a labor of love, but it's pretty hard to import talent on those grounds - particularly if no one has significant affection for your brand.

Part of the power of startups (and Apple) is that they get some economically-irrational commitments from people who care deeply about them, and it's pretty unfair to expect that for other organizations.

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

#353

Post by ones_and_zeros »

DanBC wrote: post #348
ones_and_zeros wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. I recently found out Michael O'Church was banned from HN because he called her the c word because of the anti-worker policies she implemented at Yahoo. (somewhat indirectly, and I'm hesitant to use it myself for fear of being banned).

You can use the word cunt. What you can't do is call other people cunts. EDIT: >somewhat indirectly No, he directly called her a cunt. > and I'm hesitant to use it myself for fear of being banned). Literally no-one on HN has ever been banned for using the word cunt. It's only a problem if you call other people cunts. Here's the relevant mod post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10016665#10019003

I didn't downvote you but I think you see the issue with your statement yourself. HN does not censor words.

While name calling is completely childish it is most certainly tolerated by other users on HN (Do a search for "is a [insert derogatory word]" site:news.ycombinator.com. Steve Jobs is called an asshole in every HN thread.

For sure ochurch stepped on toes here but one thing he was passionate about is improving the profession of software development and in general the tech industry and he saw MMs actions really harming the profession and the industry. I obviously think HN is worse off without his commentary.

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

#354

Post by Bartweiss »

WalterBright wrote: post #289
ceejayoz wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd want to be well compensated for taking on a job where I was fairly certain I was doomed to fail because the company is being eaten alive by its competitors.

Wouldn't it be unethical to take on a job you were certain you'd fail at? (If you disclosed that, and they hired you anyway, then there's no ethical problem.)

"Fairly certain", though. If her odds of saving Yahoo were twice as good as an alternative CEO, that was a possibility worth a small fortune. And presumably, they knew the odds were low after sacking the last few CEOs. I'm hoping that she didn't even have to say it - a competent board could approach the whole thing with "we're in deep water, we think you're less doomed than most people would be".

That may well have been the case, but if those odds are 1% and 2% I wouldn't want my compensation to depend on me saving the probably-doomed company.

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

#355

Post by tomhoward »

lorenzorhoades wrote: post #321
tomhoward wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Regardless, the original comment was talking specifically about desktop. Yes but that's the point. Microsoft may still be the most dominant player on the desktop, but they're no longer the most important company in tech, because the desktop is no longer the only important platform. Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple are all now as important or more important than Microsoft, because they all run platforms that are a…

I think the OP was talking specifically about search, not tech in general. It's rather obvious that unless companies constantly reinvent themselves that the new tech will replace old methods. His question was directed toward the possibility of someone coming in and taking over search as it is today. Which i'm curious of other opinion on this question as well, because frankly I think unless a radical innovation happen…

> I think the OP was talking specifically about search, not tech in general.

Yeah fair enough, so they were.

> It's rather obvious that unless companies constantly reinvent themselves that the new tech will replace old methods.

It's obvious in theory/hindsight, but not so much in the real world, as it's impossible to predict exactly what the next important thing will look like - which is why it's pretty much always a new upstart that invents it rather than an incumbent.

> His question was directed toward the possibility of someone coming in and taking over search as it is today. Which i'm curious of other opinion on this question as well, because frankly I think unless a radical innovation happens in the field, that modern day search is going to be forever relegated to google.

Well, for what it's worth, and if it isn't already clear from my previous comments, I'm pretty sure Google will always dominate search-as-we-know-it, but that's not that big a deal, because search-as-we-know-it won't always be as important as it is now.

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

#356

Post by speby »

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…

Difficult to say how much "good faith effort" she put in but nobody questions her commitment and work ethic. It's fairly well-documented, perhaps to a fault: http://www.redbookmag.com/life/money-career/a45516/marissa-m...

I am not suggesting that working long hours, even as CEO, is necessary or even good for success but I, for one, would definitely not assume Mayer isn't really trying to do a show of good faith, regardless of how much money Yahoo and its board agreed to pay her.

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

#357

Post by forgetsusername »

akjainaj wrote: post #34
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 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.

>So, bashing Marissa here would be really, really pointless and sad

If this was actually evident, what's the point of hiring her for the position with huge compensation? What's the point of taking the job, and why should that decision deserve praise? It sounds to me like she accepted an impossible task for tons of money. That isn't impressive.

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

#358

Post by forgetsusername »

akjainaj wrote: post #137
CalChris wrote: post #114

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…

>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 are CEOs responsible for the company or not?

Because HackerNews seems to want bank executives to go to prison for actions taken by the company and its employees. However, we don't want to even hold a tech CEO accountable for the financial results of the company because the culture is "stodgy"? One of the CEO's jobs is to change the culture.

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

#359

Post by shitgoose »

normaljoe wrote: post #293
shitgoose wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if only they had a chance to rewrite their web site in angular 2, things would have been so much different. jokes aside, they rewrote their yahoo finance site in some JavaScript framework, so it became plain unusable. they moved ticker box to the right side (congratulation, Marissa, deeply strategic decision! how many millions did you get for this one?) and hooked it up to shitload of JS, so entering ticker and press…

Jokes aside. I'm not 100% sure but I am guessing based on few thing I see in the current code browser side. Finance probably copied a lot of what sports was doing. Sports was ahead of the game a little because it was not as old as Finance. I know that Angular 1 was not allowed back when it first started to catch on. I am not sure if it was because of the CLA or the license, but I do think there was something legal ar…

yahoo finance was fast, old fashioned site used and scraped by lot of people. kudos to them for being one of the few sources of free EOD data and options chains. the decision to fuck it up (meticulously executed) must have come from the top. i am not blaming Marissa for choosing the wrong JS framework, but for being completely clueless while one of the pillars of yahoo online business was being destroyed.

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

#360

Post by chris_va »

basch wrote: post #349
dpark wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 fr…

how is Yahoo News not considered successful? Sure its a lot of AP aggregation, but most importantly, people were clicking it.

There isn't much money in news content, at least by internet giant metrics, so I think its success is somewhat irrelevant.
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