Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Consider $1.1B, All-Cash Deal for Tumblr

allthingsd.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

111–120 of 120 posts

Re: Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Consider $1.1B, All-Cash Deal for Tumblr

#111

Post by standby »

nerdnorth wrote: post #84
ghshephard wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Forbes Article has them hockey sticking their revenue. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffbercovici/2013/01/02/tumblr-... "The company finished 2012 with $13 million in revenue; the hope in this “leap” year is that it’ll get to $100 million."

That article is full of gold: 2012 - Operating Expenses: $25 million, Revenue $14 million (that's an $11 million loss on paper) For 2013, they're saying they'll need to hit 4x revenue growth in order to hit profitability? Does that mean 4x the ads for their (fickle) userbase?

The $14 million revenue of 2012 was not using the same business model of 2013. Ads is a new thing.

Re: Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Consider $1.1B, All-Cash Deal for Tumblr

#112

Post by tptacek »

ghshephard wrote: post #67
tptacek wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow. Also: Marco calls himself an "employee" as well.

I think the suggestion is that Marco probably didn't have a sizable equity chunk - I.E. the 70/30 split might be generous - and it very well might have been something closer to 95/5. I've listened to pretty much all his podcasts, and while Marco is pretty wide open when it comes to financials (in one memorable episode, he detailed pretty much every line-item costs associated with instapaper, and he's been even more o…

If he didn't put money in and took a near-market salary from day 1, 5% is extremely generous.

Re: Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Consider $1.1B, All-Cash Deal for Tumblr

#113

Post by drgath »

kmfrk wrote: post #104
yuhong wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think she is already trying to fix Flickr, in fact.

The iOS app, which is one of said attempts, is outright awful, so I haven't seen much of a track record to assuage my reservations about her ability to improve the offerings. Upcoming.org was also shut down in a really stupid way, regardless of whether you like the service it self. Very reminiscent of Google's way of going about things, actually. :)

> The iOS app, which is one of said attempts, is outright awful

It has a 4.5 out of 5 star rating in iTunes.

Re: Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Consider $1.1B, All-Cash Deal for Tumblr

#114

Post by kmfrk »

drgath wrote: post #113
kmfrk wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iOS app, which is one of said attempts, is outright awful, so I haven't seen much of a track record to assuage my reservations about her ability to improve the offerings. Upcoming.org was also shut down in a really stupid way, regardless of whether you like the service it self. Very reminiscent of Google's way of going about things, actually. :)

> The iOS app, which is one of said attempts, is outright awful It has a 4.5 out of 5 star rating in iTunes.

I wonder how many of those people use it for uploading. It's so-so for just browsing (the images in the feed are - very - downsampled).

Re: Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Consider $1.1B, All-Cash Deal for Tumblr

#115

Post by drgath »

onedev wrote: post #68
hcarvalhoalves wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is, since when eyeballs started being worth so much? Isn't it proven already that users are like butterflies in the hand (you can't squeeze them, but let loose they fly away)? Myspace is there to prove that being king today doesn't say s * about your position in ten years. This year Facebook lost 1.4 million users, first deficit since launch.

How much of that 1.4 million is due to people dying? Global churn affects your userbase when you have a userbase as insanely massive as Facebook's.

54 million people die each year (150k / day)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortality_rate

Re: Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Consider $1.1B, All-Cash Deal for Tumblr

#116

Post by jessedhillon »

coldtea wrote: post #92
jessedhillon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If acquiring millions of users is so worthless, why don't we all have 100k+ monthly page views and fantastic engagement numbers? Or, put another way: put a dollar value on a speculative Yahoo effort to attract a user base the size and demographic composition of tumblr's. Don't forget to price in the risk of failure.

> If acquiring millions of users is so worthless, why don't we all have 100k+ monthly page views and fantastic engagement numbers? What kind of bizarro logic is this? For one, something being worthless doesn't mean it is also common. There are rare and difficult to attain things that are also worthless. Second, we're discussing monetary worth here. That is, if you get something back for your 1.1 billion dollars. A se…

Oh, I see you only read half my comment before responding. Try the other half now.

Re: Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Consider $1.1B, All-Cash Deal for Tumblr

#117

Post by ghshephard »

tptacek wrote: post #112
ghshephard wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the suggestion is that Marco probably didn't have a sizable equity chunk - I.E. the 70/30 split might be generous - and it very well might have been something closer to 95/5. I've listened to pretty much all his podcasts, and while Marco is pretty wide open when it comes to financials (in one memorable episode, he detailed pretty much every line-item costs associated with instapaper, and he's been even more o…

If he didn't put money in and took a near-market salary from day 1, 5% is extremely generous.

Agreed if he were an average employee, but, (A) he was doing pretty much all the heavy lifting early on - to some degree tumblr v.1 was the creation of Marco, (B) he made it clear he took less money because he could "use whatever keyboard he wanted, and had more than 3' of desk space" and (C) It's not that generous when there are only two people working on a project.

Also - he's a talented developer, and tends to get shit done (as demonstrated via Instapaper, ATP, The Magazine) - and those people command a higher return.

Also - David Karp wasn't a well known entrepreneur back in the day, and Marco came in at the genesis.

5% would have been generous if it had been after a round of funding, but pre Series A/Angel Round, it's what any top level developer should ask for when going into the same situation as Marco. Tumblr might not have existed where it not for him.

Re: Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Consider $1.1B, All-Cash Deal for Tumblr

#118

Post by onedev »

drgath wrote: post #115
onedev wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of that 1.4 million is due to people dying? Global churn affects your userbase when you have a userbase as insanely massive as Facebook's.

54 million people die each year (150k / day) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mortality_rate

So the fact that 1.4 million people "left" doesn't really mean anything then.

Also, according to all statistics, Facebook has actually been GROWING. They have 1.11 billion users now compared to less than 1 billion last year. Something like a 26% growth if I recall.

Come on people, there are only a finite number of internet connected human beings on this planet. Growth HAS to slow down at some point. They're not gonna double their userbase YoY if they already have over 1bn people on their service....that'd literally be impossible.

Re: Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Consider $1.1B, All-Cash Deal for Tumblr

#119

Post by ghshephard »

tptacek wrote: post #108
aaronbrethorst wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everywhere else, he's described as a cofounder. Being shrugged off as an employee would be insulting.

"Founder" is very different from "early employee". Being called an employee, when that's what you are, isn't an insult.

The word, "Founder" - isn't really black and white.

Simply drawing a salary doesn't mean you aren't a founder - the vast number of founders of companies I know of in the valley draw a salary. Not investing money, also, doesn't mean you aren't a founder.

My definition of a founder? Someone who's idea's shaped what the company would be, who started work on the project prior to there being an actual company, brought a lot to the table (whether that is engineering, marketing, money, leadership) that made the company successful, and had an equity stake in the company.

In Marco's case, all four are true. He was there before tumblr existed, helped shape what tumblr would do, did much of the engineering that made tumblr what it is today, and he had an equity stake. He could reasonably be called a founder.

With that said, being known as a "Founder" is also subject to negotiation, and sometimes an employee can come on up to a year after the company is started, invest no money, but still be called a "Founder." It's really quite nebulous.

Re: Yahoo Board to Meet Sunday to Consider $1.1B, All-Cash Deal for Tumblr

#120

Post by ijverig »

ghshephard wrote: post #67
tptacek wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow. Also: Marco calls himself an "employee" as well.

I think the suggestion is that Marco probably didn't have a sizable equity chunk - I.E. the 70/30 split might be generous - and it very well might have been something closer to 95/5. I've listened to pretty much all his podcasts, and while Marco is pretty wide open when it comes to financials (in one memorable episode, he detailed pretty much every line-item costs associated with instapaper, and he's been even more o…

Where did Marco talk about The Magazine revenues and costs?
Post reply on HN