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Alibaba Raises $21.8B in Initial Public Offering

nytimes.com

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Re: Alibaba Raises $21.8B in Initial Public Offering

#101

Post by skuhn »

pauleastlund wrote: post #98
skuhn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do still have some smart people, but I don't think anyone or any amount of money can turn things around for them in any meaningful way. Their pre-Marissa acquisitions were almost universally wastes of time and money. It's too soon to tell about the recent acquisitions, but I don't see them making that $1bn back from Tumblr in my lifetime. Yahoo is an also ran, constantly playing catch up and trying to emulate th…

> Yahoo employees have to use Yahoo Mail for all of their work e-mail. The web interface only, with ads. I don't know where you got this from, if it was true but no longer isn't, or if it's only true in parts of the company, but I was just there for 13 months after an acqui-hire and no one ever made me or anyone on my team use Yahoo Mail.

The mandate to use Yahoo Mail for corp users is from the last month or two. Perhaps it does not cover the entire company, but my understanding was that it did.

Yahoo corp mail was previously Exchange (!). Also awful, but at least it supports IMAP.

Re: Alibaba Raises $21.8B in Initial Public Offering

#102

Post by skuhn »

_pmf_ wrote: post #64
skuhn wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They do still have some smart people, but I don't think anyone or any amount of money can turn things around for them in any meaningful way. Their pre-Marissa acquisitions were almost universally wastes of time and money. It's too soon to tell about the recent acquisitions, but I don't see them making that $1bn back from Tumblr in my lifetime. Yahoo is an also ran, constantly playing catch up and trying to emulate th…

> But that will never happen at Yahoo, there is no will to make an excellent product for a technically demanding audience. That seriously leads me to ask me what the fuck the engineers are actually doing there if they're not improving a core product.

In my experience, there is an astonishing amount of work to do just keeping your head above water. Particularly in a corporate environment where you spend 90% of your time getting permission and buy-in for the other 10% where real work occurs. It's demoralizing to say the least.

Re: Alibaba Raises $21.8B in Initial Public Offering

#103

Post by w1ntermute »

dang wrote: post #100
w1ntermute wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This kind of Orientalist armchair psychology is standard in high-bullshit cultures like ours[1]. Do you actually know anything about psychology, or are you just talking out of your ass? Because the idea of high and low context cultures is not a recent or controversial one, and high context cultures are not all "Oriental." In fact, they can be found in southern Europe (not to mention other non-Asian parts of the wor…

> Do you actually know anything about psychology, or are you just talking out of your ass? Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News.

I never attacked the commenter, I only criticized his comment.

Re: Alibaba Raises $21.8B in Initial Public Offering

#104

Post by badamson »

skuhn wrote: post #99
skuhn wrote: post #5

Alibaba going for a higher selling price just makes the continued undervaluing of Yahoo itself increasingly hilarious. At some point, I would think someone will want to buy them for all of this free money they have sitting around. YHOO market cap : 42.3bn + liabilities : 3.7bn = 46bn (to own outright) Meanwhile: Cash on hand = 1.1bn + Other assets = 15.3bn + Cash from Alibaba sale = 8.3bn + Value of remaining Alibaba…

To briefly follow up now that Alibaba had its first day of trading and shot up in value: YHOO market cap : 41.86bn + liabilities : 3.7bn = 45.56bn (-0.44bn) Cash on hand = 1.1bn + Other assets = 15.3bn + Cash from Alibaba sale = 8.3bn + Value of remaining Alibaba stock = 37.7bn + Value of Yahoo Japan stock = 9bn = 71.4bn (+14.3bn) Now we're at 25.84bn of "free" money. Many, many companies are valued at well above the…

Your "other assets" line seems too high....I believe you're double counting their Alibaba & Yahoo Japan stakes...."other assets" s/b $11.3B, no?

Re: Alibaba Raises $21.8B in Initial Public Offering

#105

Post by skuhn »

badamson wrote: post #104
skuhn wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To briefly follow up now that Alibaba had its first day of trading and shot up in value: YHOO market cap : 41.86bn + liabilities : 3.7bn = 45.56bn (-0.44bn) Cash on hand = 1.1bn + Other assets = 15.3bn + Cash from Alibaba sale = 8.3bn + Value of remaining Alibaba stock = 37.7bn + Value of Yahoo Japan stock = 9bn = 71.4bn (+14.3bn) Now we're at 25.84bn of "free" money. Many, many companies are valued at well above the…

Your "other assets" line seems too high....I believe you're double counting their Alibaba & Yahoo Japan stakes...."other assets" s/b $11.3B, no?

'Total assets' is listed as 16.45mm, which includes 1.1mm in cash and 5.59mm in long term investments. So yes, I suppose if they are counting Alibaba / YJ stock in long term investments (which makes sense), then it is being double counted.

Re: Alibaba Raises $21.8B in Initial Public Offering

#106

Post by downandout »

mafribe wrote: post #73
downandout wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From an IQ perspective, I think she is probably among the top 5 executives in the Valley - likely smarter than Sergey Brin or Larry Page, her former co-workers at Google. She's brilliant. I'm only going by her performance thus far - for whatever reason, most of her acquisitions have been blunders. There are valuable start-ups all around - it doesn't make sense to me that Yahoo can't find them. I realize that there is…

On the basis of what evidence do you make such grand claims about her intellectual abilities?

Everything I have read/seen/listened to about her indicates she is brilliant (including the opinions of her co-workers, watching speeches she has given etc). But intelligence and business aptitude are not synonymous. Pretty sure thats what I said. I wasn't backing off my opinion.

Re: Alibaba Raises $21.8B in Initial Public Offering

#107

Post by mafribe »

downandout wrote: post #106
mafribe wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the basis of what evidence do you make such grand claims about her intellectual abilities?

Everything I have read/seen/listened to about her indicates she is brilliant (including the opinions of her co-workers, watching speeches she has given etc). But intelligence and business aptitude are not synonymous. Pretty sure thats what I said. I wasn't backing off my opinion.

Truth be told, I was hoping for a more substantial answer, something that I could look at that unequivocally shows her "brilliance". The public statements of her's that I'm familiar with are pretty hum-drum.

Re: Alibaba Raises $21.8B in Initial Public Offering

#108

Post by vbs_redlof »

lurkylurk wrote: post #78

A bit off topic: Is there a good site to keep track of all tech IPOs and including historical data and upcoming/withdrawn IPOs?

http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/ipos/

Includes withdrawn, priced and filed IPOs. Very clean data, straight from SEC Edgar filings.

Re: Alibaba Raises $21.8B in Initial Public Offering

#109

Post by huherto »

jonny_eh wrote: post #63
jimbokun wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of when AAPL was getting close to the value of cash and assets, pre-Jobs return. Was the perfect time to buy AAPL, but of course not clear whether Yahoo has a Jobs at Apple kind of turnaround in them.

Until Mayer unveils a product as impressive as the iMac (or iPod), I wouldn't jump on that stock just yet.

true. But it is going to be too late by then.

Re: Alibaba Raises $21.8B in Initial Public Offering

#110

Post by jonny_eh »

huherto wrote: post #109
jonny_eh wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until Mayer unveils a product as impressive as the iMac (or iPod), I wouldn't jump on that stock just yet.

true. But it is going to be too late by then.

If you had invested just after Jobs unveiled the iMac and the first iPod, you would have done quite well.
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