If Marissa gave $70M to HN for acquisitions for Yahoo, who all would you guys acquire and why?
If I had any clue what their strategy actually was, I could give you a coherent answer.
Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st
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Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
Typically the purchasing company will have an idea of who are must keeps, etc. They'll then put financial incentives in place that would typically exceed free market (golden handcuffs...in a manner similar to startup vesting (X amount of shares or X in cashola vesting / released over Y amount of time))
If you're going to joke around about handcuffs, you can't misuse "free market" at the same time. The offer doesn't exceed "free market", it simply exceeds market.
Ahh..true. My bad.
Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
how does buying a team actually work - when the company gets bought from the shareholders, can't the employees tell yahoo to piss off and not sign new contracts? how does the process look like?
From the OP of this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6140982 , which mentions that " In each instance [of acquisition], Yahoo has locked up engineers with two- to four-year contracts..." , it sounds like the employees are given a 2-4 year contract to sign, or they can leave ... which would be a voluntary separation without unemployment etc.
I can't imagine that would work, otherwise every company would do something like that to get out of paying unemployment. Like... "We're not firing you, we are just going to pay you minimum wage now, and if you choose to quit, that's your choice."
Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st
#44For those keeping score, this gives another win for Khosla Ventures, SV Angel, a16z, and First Round. Here's the tally for those who invested in companies that have been acquired by Y! since Mayer took over: CrunchFund - 3 (Stamped, GoPollGo, Tumblr) True Ventures - 3 (OnTheAir, Snip.It, Lexity) Khosla Venture - 3 (Snip.It, Xobni, Rockmelt) SV Angel - 3 (Snip,It, Xobni, Rockmelt) Google Ventures - 2 (Astrid & Stamped…
It should be noted that "win" is a relative term in Rockmelt's case, since there was only a $60-70M return on a $40M investment.
Fair enough. However for what is believed to be an acqui-hire and a team that has some lofty ambitions, I think the founding team and investors must have been happy that the team/product found a nice home.
Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
From the OP of this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6140982 , which mentions that " In each instance [of acquisition], Yahoo has locked up engineers with two- to four-year contracts..." , it sounds like the employees are given a 2-4 year contract to sign, or they can leave ... which would be a voluntary separation without unemployment etc.
I can't imagine that would work, otherwise every company would do something like that to get out of paying unemployment. Like... "We're not firing you, we are just going to pay you minimum wage now, and if you choose to quit, that's your choice."
That's a constructive termination, and in theory your unemployment office would consider it to be such. I've only collected it twice, and in both cases the company that laid me off made ridiculous claims it was for cause, they seemed to be very savvy about the games some employers play.
But see jack-r-abbit in the other subtread, this will be done as a layoff in a soon to be dead company (which obviously won't care about its increased unemployment insurance payments) and an ... opportunity to join the other company, of course on their terms.
Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st
#46For those keeping score, this gives another win for Khosla Ventures, SV Angel, a16z, and First Round. Here's the tally for those who invested in companies that have been acquired by Y! since Mayer took over: CrunchFund - 3 (Stamped, GoPollGo, Tumblr) True Ventures - 3 (OnTheAir, Snip.It, Lexity) Khosla Venture - 3 (Snip.It, Xobni, Rockmelt) SV Angel - 3 (Snip,It, Xobni, Rockmelt) Google Ventures - 2 (Astrid & Stamped…
This acquisition reminds me a lot of Hunch. It's a similar size in terms of team + cost per team member. $2-3M/employee. And, Hunch's core tech seems to have gone into the eBay homepage, which is what Sarah is proposing Yahoo do with Rockmelt.
Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st
#4760-70 Million for talent? Wow. I suppose Yahoo is trying a novel approach to recruiting: target startup founders/employees, give generous equity offers (via acquisition price) as well as a 'win' on the resume (successful exit). I have to say, it's a pretty compelling offer...
They can easily get talent for much much less.. just by posting an ad in the "Who's Hiring?" thread. There are many talented people who want to join Yahoo, but feel HR/gatekeepers are too much of an obstacle to even apply.
Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
It should be noted that "win" is a relative term in Rockmelt's case, since there was only a $60-70M return on a $40M investment.
Fair enough. However for what is believed to be an acqui-hire and a team that has some lofty ambitions, I think the founding team and investors must have been happy that the team/product found a nice home.
RIght. But this would never been termed a win by any VC. Perhaps the earliest founders.
Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st
#49Does anyone have any real insight into the strategy behind all of these acquisitions? Apart from blasé speculation about acqui-hiring (for what products?) and supposition that Yahoo executives are merely stupid, I'd be interested to understand the broader pattern. It's a real news story, and something is going on. There is a strategy. What is it?
Yahoo needs talent to succeed. Yahoo, in general, cannot compete with Google, Facebook or smaller startups for talent. They're better off now than they were prior to Marissa but they're still a definite second best. So they are buying talent to stock the shelves with first rate devs and leaders - mostly in mobile. At some point - say in 6 - 18 more months - talent may come to work for them to work with some of these smart people they're acquiring reducing their need to acquire companies at such a frantic pace. It's a smart strategy.
Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st
#50If Marissa gave $70M to HN for acquisitions for Yahoo, who all would you guys acquire and why?
I'd buy my own company and split the proceeds among us, naturally!