The Summly deal makes no sense • Hacker News Board

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#71

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 1:05 PM UTC

mattmanser wrote: post #65

jgrahamc wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read the entire thing as someone being jealous and trying to explain that away by picking at the deal.

Sometimes you just want to make sense of something that seems flabbergastingly stupid. Hell, it's Yahoo's money to burn, but it's not jealousy, it's confusion. It would be interesting to read any sort of explanation, not that we'll get one. But this acquisition is eerily reminiscent of about.me's and is getting a similar level of scorn from us. Big, dead, web 1.0 company purchases virtually worthless startup for no a…

[deleted]

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#72

Post by easytiger » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 1:06 PM UTC

wavefunction wrote: post #46

smackay wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps it is a signal to the marketplace, either to other startups or to investors that Yahoo! is rejuvenating itself (or at least is trying to), moreso since it is an acquisition outside of Silicon Valley.

What sort of signal though? Other than the mainstream media, pretty much anyone else with at least a clue seems to be confused by this acquisition.

well how much does it cost to get your company name on the front page of every tech site without allowing a massive data breach

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#73

Post by senthilnayagam » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 1:07 PM UTC

objclxt wrote: post #57

zenocon wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same question -- how does this individual know that their team only passed 2/5 interviews, and what the back and forth negotiations were. It seems to me they're either making this up, or they are sharing info that I'd guess is going to make Yahoo fairly annoyed.

He's surmising it from the AllThingsD story, which states only two of the five employees will be moving to Yahoo. That doesn't necessarily mean the other three failed the interviews - maybe they don't want to work for Yahoo.

If indeed 3/5 developers rejected yahoo offer, that's a PR nightmare

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#74

Post by JPKab » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 1:08 PM UTC

mtoddh wrote: post #13

From the article, Let's ignore the hurt feelings that our employees will have about making a 17 year-old a millionaire. The price tag for this company aside, am I the only one that detects a hint of jealousy in some of the comments that seem to imply "but he's too young to be a millionaire!"?

As someone who isn't remotely jealous for the kid (I'm happy for him actually), let's not pretend that he is an innovator. It's a link aggregator app, no different than pulse or others. In fact, the difference from Pulse is that its inferior, because it displays far less at a time. But that is my opinion, and I'm sure a lot of older folks like it better BECAUSE it displays less.

Kid: Go for it dude, and good luck.

Yahoo: WTF?? Why not just build your own version of this?

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#75

Post by patrickskim » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 1:10 PM UTC

trotsky wrote: post #55

When the number sounds way too high and it's from a single anonymous source and no one else is talking - it's often a lie. People have big egos.

What's the point? Doesn't the truth come out eventually? Yahoo is a public company, their financials aren't exactly secrets.

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#76

Post by patrickskim » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 1:10 PM UTC

trotsky wrote: post #55

When the number sounds way too high and it's from a single anonymous source and no one else is talking - it's often a lie. People have big egos.

What's the point? Doesn't the truth come out eventually? Yahoo is a public company, their financials aren't exactly secrets.

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#77

Post by IanDrake » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 1:11 PM UTC

Right after college I started consulting at an eCommerce company that had bought a 17 year old's website for over 1M. Had had built a gaming community site that had become very popular and they wanted the traffic.

I thought the kid was just lucky until I was in a meeting with him. His thought process basically ran circles around everyone else in the room, some twice his age. I realized then, that there are kids, KIDS!, much smarter than I'll ever hope to be in my life.

Sometimes you have to meet these people to believe they exist.

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#78

Post by huhtenberg » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 1:11 PM UTC

wangarific wrote: post #64

scholia wrote: post #58

Last year's press release had quotes from Daniel Ek (Spotify) and Mary Meeker, and said: "Summly is backed by several investors, including Horizons Ventures, Ashton Kutcher, Betaworks, Brian Chesky, Hosain Rahman, Joanna Shields, Josh Kushner, Mark Pincus, Matt Mullenweg, Stephen Fry, Troy Carter, Yoko Ono and many more." Not exactly a teen-programmer-in-mother's-basement story...

Yahoo just paid $30mm for an unknown technology and a fresh face to parade around, they would appreciate it if you didn't start poking holes in the narrative. Thank you

Actually it now looks more and more like some sort of elaborate kick-back scheme for the investors. "Your YHOO stock has sunk below the waterline, so here's something to sweeten the pot."

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#79

Post by giffo » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 1:13 PM UTC

They might have picked this company up because its news,

"Yahoo" buys "17 wiz kid" "mobile app and company", is good advertising around the world, yahoo is now a company who buys the "latest" technology, they hired a wiz kid - they have him on board he will do crazy technology experiments - "you have no idea what he could come up with next!", and they have his technology that a company as big as yahoo would play $30m for.

It tells potential users and more importantly investors and current shareholders it is now company who buys stuff because its investing and changing for the better and maybe people should change their views about yahoo etc etc.

note: I have not used the app, still don't care about yahoo.

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#80

Post by k-mcgrady » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 1:14 PM UTC

ck2 wrote: post #48

Who actually confirmed the $30M number though? No-one that I've seen quoted? Maybe it was $30M in stock?

It's not and probably won't be confirmed but 'sources' are saying $30m with 90% in cash and 10% in stock. I can't remember which site had the sources (it might have been WSJ).