Earlier quoted context omitted.
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Are you really equating finance with Facebook and Apple? L.M.A.O.
If two of the three would have to disappear tomorrow, which one would you pick to be left?
Awwww can't we get rid of all three?
What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly
231–240 of 288 posts
Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
Did you read the article? In paragraph 4 he specifically tells us he takes the founders age off the table.
I know that the OP did take it off the table. I'm not doing so. It's important, and here's why. I'm sure he's extremely talented. Most 17-year-olds aren't programming at all. However, this is an HR acquisition (they're shutting Summly down). What exactly does a 17-year-old have that merits a $30m hiring bonus? I'm not ragging on him, at all. I think it's great for him. He had the opportunity and took it. That's aweso…
It's hard to say this without sounding insulting or belittling, but I'm genuinely curious... What are your credentials? You don't have to justify yourself to some random guy on the internet (me), but a few of your comments mention you're in the "1 in a 100" category, so I'm wondering what you've done that would be so valuable to Yahoo. Is it that you're a talented engineer or more?
I probably sound like a complete dick but I'm being sincere. I often wonder where on the scale I sit (e.g. 10 in 100?), and whether I'm undervaluing myself or my talents, or even whether I'm overvaluing it? So I'm wondering how/why you arrived at your personal valuation. Hope that's not taken the wrong way.
Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
People are talking about it in a bad way. I don't think it's useful to hate or resent a 17-year-old for getting acq-hired (although it's pretty disgusting that he keeps the company of Mark Pincus and Rupert Murdoch; I'll give him till 21 to clean his judgment of character of such) but this reflects really badly on Yahoo. On the other hand, I can only imagine what kind of internal HR issues these acqui-hires may creat…
Any attempt to innovate in corporation is potential career killer. That is how companies work. So many smart engineers are just quiet and they just do what they are told (make they boss happy).
Absolutely, pure innovators dilemma.
Seems Yahoo! tried to solve this with their "brickhouse" program, a new product incubator, but ultimately it seems that was too disruptive and got axed.
Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly
#234While I don't disagree with this opinion, I believe that there is also a positive side of the problem and I have expressed my opinion here - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5447184
Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I'd love to understand. In my biased opinion I'd suggest you study western and northern European democracies. The government provides essential services (decentralized up to the district level) like education, water, streets, police, health care, social security for it's citizens. I'd rather have clean water and unbiased police and justice and free education. Every private company needs to maximize their own profit…
> The government provides essential services (decentralized up to the district level) like education, water, streets, police, health care, social security for it's citizens. I wonder if herein lies the fundamental difference. I would never put it the way you have. The people form the government and pay them to administer infrastructure and services for them. That is massively different than the "government does for i…
If you really want to understand, do some reading. Different (conflicting) economic theories, history, philosophy..
It's quite easy to broaden ones perspective, if that's actually the goal.
Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm looking forward to the compilation entitled "How to succeed at Yahoo".
Well, first they'd have to acq-hire me. I'm cheaper than $30 million, though. I am seriously considering considering going into business as an "unfuck your culture" consultant. If you're at the point where you're paying $6 million per head for talent, then I'm a fucking steal at $2500 per hour [0]. Sure, I will talk your ear off for 200-400 hours over two months and bill you for almost a million, but I will solve you…
Given your comment history, and the way you seem to understand the bigger picture, I would not hesitate to go to business with you. So, let's get busy getting acq-hired. (:
Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly
#237I'm sure a lot of people are resentful or disgusted that a 17-year-old was acquired for $30 million. I just find it fucking hilarious. It's awesome, not in some dipshit "American Dream" sort of way, but in the "holy shit, this world is on crack" sense of it. I say, go him! The next time I am looking for work I am seriously considering getting rid of the resume and coming up with a bullshit startup name. It's pretty r…
If it's that easy why don't you do it? Surely a self-proclaimed 1 in a 100 programmer could bang out a product ripe for aquihire in the time it took to write all these "don't care, but still" posts?
I never said that it's easy.
We both know that it's not "easy" to get acq-hired for $30 million. It's also not easy to win the Powerball, even if any idiot has a chance.
It is, however, a sign of something wrong in the economy.
When a $6-million-per-engineer acq-hire (the team, not the product, is being bought) is going down, the company is paying about 50 years of an engineer's salary for an employment relationship. A job lasts, on average, 4.4 years according to BLS. Particulars to acq-hires only make that expected duration lower, but let's use 4.4 because we don't know what the "real number" here is.
Executives bitch until they're blue in the face about paying 25% for a normal recruiter. It seems inconsistent to complain that your headhunter's charging you 25%, then pay 5000% for an HR acquisition.
This means one of two things. The first is that, possibly, the employment relationship is worth that much. That is, it's worth $1.5 million per year (as opposed to the more typically cited figures, which are around $200,000) to employ an engineer. Well, then engineers are getting screwed. They're only getting ~7% of their total value-add (120k / 1620k) instead of 38% (120k / 320k).
The second possibility is that engineers aren't getting screwed, but that companies are so bad at discovering talent internally that the only way the executives and get their hands on someone good is to buy people on the market at a very high price. That's not saying that there aren't good people at a company like Yahoo; only that the middle-management filter is so dysfunctional that executives don't know what they have.
Let's say that in November, you pay $2000, out of desperation, for a new coat that's worth $175. When your lease ends in August and you're cleaning everything out, you find that you had an equally good coat in your apartment, just sitting there all winter. You couldn't spot it before because the place was such a pigsty. You'd feel like an idiot, then, wouldn't you?
That's how executives deserve to feel if they acq-hire talent for $6 million but have capable people within (and I'm sure they must have some) who are being underutilized on trivial features and fourth-quadrant nonsense. If you simply don't have talent, then go ahead and buy it at a high price. If you have it and can't find or use it, then you need to scorched-earth your whole management structure.
Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, first they'd have to acq-hire me. I'm cheaper than $30 million, though. I am seriously considering considering going into business as an "unfuck your culture" consultant. If you're at the point where you're paying $6 million per head for talent, then I'm a fucking steal at $2500 per hour [0]. Sure, I will talk your ear off for 200-400 hours over two months and bill you for almost a million, but I will solve you…
Given your comment history, and the way you seem to understand the bigger picture, I would not hesitate to go to business with you. So, let's get busy getting acq-hired. (:
Are you in New York? I'm always happy to kick around ideas, and for the next 3 weeks or so I have more time than usual.
Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly
#239Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am going to give Yahoo the benefit of the doubt. I have a hard time believing that they'd pay $30M to gain five programmers. There's a lot more to this than we are aware of. C'mon folks, if you think the math doesn't add-up (as an acqui-hire) don't you think the folks at Yahoo can do basic arithmetic as well. I've also read a few posts on this thread saying as much as "there are no smart people at Yahoo" or "everyo…
I have a hard time believing that they'd pay $30M to gain five programmers. That's a fairly standard acq-hire, actually. It's not just Yahoo that's paying over $5 million per head. It's ridiculous, when you consider that the value of an employment relationship (which can be ended by either party at any time) is set at 30-60 times the annual salary. (Just think about it: how is a relationship that lasts 4.5 years on a…
It's not even five programmers - according to the news, only the founder and 2 employees are joining Yahoo. This is acquisition is fantastic news for the founder, but I'm still at a loss on how it can possibly be a good business decision for Yahoo.
I don't believe in "publicity" and "getting in the news" and "making Yahoo hip again" - for $30m, you could do much better. I don't really believe it's for talent either - they could have found much bigger and better mobile teams for that money if they wanted to.
The only two hypotheses that seem plausible to me are:
* SRI accidentally granted Summly a too broad and cheap license for their summarisation technology, and it's cheaper than licensing from SRI directly.
* The 17-year-old founder's parent is a Morgan Stanley executive, and the startup has high-profile investors. Some M&A exec at Yahoo went golfing with one of the investors, and decided to help an old friend cash out on his investment. The rest of the deal is just a side effect.
Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
Given your comment history, and the way you seem to understand the bigger picture, I would not hesitate to go to business with you. So, let's get busy getting acq-hired. (:
Are you in New York? I'm always happy to kick around ideas, and for the next 3 weeks or so I have more time than usual.
I'm in NY and would love to tell you about what we are building. Hit me at GMALEKILLA at gmail.