Ask HN: What happened to Twitter poison pill?

Post by dang » Tue, Apr 26, 2022, 9:45 PM UTC

twayt wrote: post #288

dang wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It isn't just about being personal (though that's particularly bad). It's about not tossing in pejoratives and putdowns. The HN guidelines are clear about this: " When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. 'That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3' can be shortened to '1 + 1 is 2, not 3. " We don't want name-calling (in this sense) because it leads to dumber, nastier internet discussion. It's…

I think you misunderstood my comment. I agree with the spirit of the rule and hold a similar view to what you explained. I was pointing out to the commenter that while it was not technically as hominem, it is still not acceptable and doesn’t add anything to the discussion.

Post by leaflets2 » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 3:50 AM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #283

resoluteteeth wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The share price reflects the market's valuation of the company, and shareholders are not going to want to sell for a price less than the current share price plus a premium. Maybe if the board had information that hadn't been published yet showing that the company's financials had completely tanked since the last earnings report it would be different, but other than that, Twitter's financials are obviously public, and…

No, that's not true. The board's job is to determine how far off the share price is from what they believe the company is worth based on their own internal projections. The board is certainly not expected to take the spot price of Twitter common stock as the ground truth of the company's valuation.

Post by Rastonbury » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 4:38 AM UTC

zmgsabst wrote: post #243

Rastonbury wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding #2, it isn't so simple for the board, they have large institutional shareholders and sovereign wealth funds, including activist Elliot Management who can sue the board if they think the board is accepting a offer too low. Elliot[1] famously sued the country of Argentina and seized one of their warships when they defaulted on their debt which Elliot owned, they're the ones who pushed for Dorsey's exit, inter…

Elliot Management had an approximately 9% stake when they went after Dorsey [1], but have since liquidated it and own (if any) a significantly smaller portion. They’re not in the top few investors, anymore. [2] The Twitter board was sued last year due to their deals with Elliot Management — and may not want to face a second, concurrent lawsuit about breach of duty. [3] [1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/abrambrown/2021…

Post by lproven » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 9:08 AM UTC

Post by ImPostingOnHN » Wed, Apr 27, 2022, 9:16 AM UTC

strken wrote: post #279

foobarian wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is that a large number of people got used to various trading accounts like ETrade, Robin Hood, etc. and that seeing "N shares of ABC" on a web site means that they actually own the shares. But this is just an abstraction like someone said in another comment. I would encourage you to go and read any brokerage's terms of service that you agreed to when you signed up. Or if you actually managed to ge…

I personally am aware that shares are a very limited form of ownership and gave my personal answers for why I accept that, but the meta-level question that was raised by krick earlier still stands, which is how everyone else in the world sees it and goes "yep, that's totally fair, we don't need to fix this."