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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

#61

Post by _greim_ »

jusben1369 wrote: post #49
ForrestN wrote: post #27

Does 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…

Bear with me while I ask a dumb question. Why pay $70M to acquire a startup just for their engineering and technical talent? What's the going rate for a really good engineer nowadays, $150K? Why not just offer $180K? That difference adds up to a lot less than $70M.

Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st

#63

Post by badclient »

capkutay wrote: post #54
badclient wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For How much money Rockmelt raised says little about how good of a deal Yahoo received. The reverse may be true: Yahoo may have had to pay way more than the real value simply to ensure a return to the investors, not because it valued the company at the price paid.

raising $40 million...the investors most likely just made their money back at best. Maybe 2x for the early investors?

The investors should have taken a loss. It was a failing business.

Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st

#64

Post by lonelycoder »

ForrestN wrote: post #27

Does 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?

Marissa's a woman. Women like shopping.

Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st

#65

Post by badclient »

photorized wrote: post #37
badclient wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has Yahoo ever tried to offer $500,000+ to rockstar mobile devs? Until it tries that, it is lame to argue that it must get talent from deadpooled companies.

That doesn't get the same PR as all this M&A activity. And the PR helps them get more talent.

Is this the best PR you can get for a $70M budget?

Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st

#67

Post by rmc »

johnrob wrote: post #6

60-70 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...

Novel means new. This isn't new. This is an acqui-hire.

Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st

#68

Post by nly »

_greim_ wrote: post #61
jusben1369 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Bear with me while I ask a dumb question. Why pay $70M to acquire a startup just for their engineering and technical talent? What's the going rate for a really good engineer nowadays, $150K? Why not just offer $180K? That difference adds up to a lot less than $70M.

because when you're on $150K, and enjoy your work, you won't jump ship to work with a dinosaur like Yahoo just for a pay rise?

Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st

#69

Post by xj9 »

lonelycoder wrote: post #64
ForrestN wrote: post #27

Does 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?

Marissa's a woman. Women like shopping.

Can the sexism, dumbass.

Re: Yahoo Has Acquired Rockmelt, Apps To Shut Down On August 31st

#70

Post by nostrademons »

_greim_ wrote: post #61
jusben1369 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Bear with me while I ask a dumb question. Why pay $70M to acquire a startup just for their engineering and technical talent? What's the going rate for a really good engineer nowadays, $150K? Why not just offer $180K? That difference adds up to a lot less than $70M.

When you acqhire a startup, you're not just buying the engineers they hired. You're filtering out all the engineers they didn't hire.

It takes an enormous amount of work to find that good engineer in the pool of unemployed workers. This is why big companies pay for sourcers, recruiters, referrals, interviewers, etc. In a typical company, that 1 good hire resulted from looking through hundreds of resumes that didn't cut it for one reason or another.

When a company does an acqhisition, they short circuit all that work, and get a pool of vetted, battle-hardened engineers who are known to work well together. That's worth a lot more than just the engineers' salaries, because there was a lot more than just their salary that went into convincing them to work for the startup.

If they just offered $180K, a number of the employees would turn it down, because they go to work for the intangibles like having good coworkers or working on interesting products, and the only way that Yahoo can bring them on board are to keep those intangible perks intact until they find a way to assimilate them into the mothership.

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