Yahoo Announces Resignation of Jerry Yang • Hacker News Board

Re: Yahoo Announces Resignation of Jerry Yang

#11

Post by kalistoga » Tue, Jan 17, 2012, 11:03 PM UTC

beatle wrote: post #8

kingofspain wrote: post #6

Yahoo is usually talked about as if it's a joke or a failure. According to a cursory check (ahoy - I'm no finance king so I could be reading this wrong) it's worth $19 billion . If I could fail half as well, I'd be pretty happy. Honest question: Am I missing something really obvious? Is Yahoo really falling apart (slowly I guess as the same has been said for the past decade)? Or is it a case of not fulfilling potenti…

Yahoo is way under valued. Yahoo was considering selling its stakes in Yahoo Japan and Alibaba Group for $17 billion. Yahoo's current market cap is $19 billion PLUS $2 billion cash. Does that somehow make the value of its U.S. assets negative?

The problem is people don't invest in the present but invest solely based on the perception of the company's future.

Re: Yahoo Announces Resignation of Jerry Yang

#12

Post by MrFoof » Tue, Jan 17, 2012, 11:06 PM UTC

There are also sources reporting that four more board members may be following him: Roy Bostock, Arthur Kern, Vyomesh Joshi and Gary Wilson. http://allthingsd.com/20120117/sources-four-more-board-membe...

Still rumor at this point, but the Wall Street Journal has a pretty good track record overall.

Re: Yahoo Announces Resignation of Jerry Yang

#13

Post by teyc » Tue, Jan 17, 2012, 11:07 PM UTC

Yahoo is lost as a brand.

My children don't know what Yahoo is.

It is one of the million insipid content destinations on the web.

Re: Yahoo Announces Resignation of Jerry Yang

#14

Post by beatle » Tue, Jan 17, 2012, 11:18 PM UTC

bluedevil2k wrote: post #5

I'd be interested to learn about his views and opinions on Yahoo during these past 15+ years. From the various things I've read about him, he seems like he was just a nerd at heart who wasn't interested in the entire business side of Yahoo, and when Yahoo started exploding, he had that "Allen/Woz" mentality of missing the "good old days". I heard about the stories (fair or not) of him spending more time on the golf c…

Here's a good title for his biography

The Rise and Fall of Jerry Yang

How he built a great company and then orchestrated one of the greatest destruction of value in the history of business

Re: Yahoo Announces Resignation of Jerry Yang

#15

Post by startupfounder » Tue, Jan 17, 2012, 11:25 PM UTC

17 years is a really long time at any company. Jerry has done an amazing job building Yahoo! from a startup to dominate player in the tech industry and has created 13,600 jobs.

Yahoo! already up 3.24% in after hours trading... so the market liked the decision.

Its a choice between shareholder value and wanting to hold onto the core culture of the company. An interesting discussion on the Microsoft offer: http://www.quora.com/Yahoo/Why-did-Jerry-Yang-pass-on-the-Mi...

Re: Yahoo Announces Resignation of Jerry Yang

#16

Post by gcb » Tue, Jan 17, 2012, 11:27 PM UTC

bluedevil2k wrote: post #5

I'd be interested to learn about his views and opinions on Yahoo during these past 15+ years. From the various things I've read about him, he seems like he was just a nerd at heart who wasn't interested in the entire business side of Yahoo, and when Yahoo started exploding, he had that "Allen/Woz" mentality of missing the "good old days". I heard about the stories (fair or not) of him spending more time on the golf c…

when he said "No" to Microsoft's offer for acquisition, a very foolish move looking back.

name companies acquired by Microsoft when microsoft already had competing products, which ended up well for both parties.

honest question. I have to believe there are a couple. and i'd like to know about.

Re: Yahoo Announces Resignation of Jerry Yang

#17

Post by fpp » Tue, Jan 17, 2012, 11:28 PM UTC

dsimms wrote: post #4

Q. When does Microsoft announce the acquisition?

A. After HTC has sold enough Android phones

Re: Yahoo Announces Resignation of Jerry Yang

#18

Post by _3u10 » Tue, Jan 17, 2012, 11:34 PM UTC

kingofspain wrote: post #6

Yahoo is usually talked about as if it's a joke or a failure. According to a cursory check (ahoy - I'm no finance king so I could be reading this wrong) it's worth $19 billion . If I could fail half as well, I'd be pretty happy. Honest question: Am I missing something really obvious? Is Yahoo really falling apart (slowly I guess as the same has been said for the past decade)? Or is it a case of not fulfilling potenti…

The stock market is an expectations game, it doesn't matter how you do what matters is if you beat expectations. If Groupon manages to lose half as much money as predicted then it will be hailed as a major success despite losing money.

If a company consistently outperform expectations then people will also get upset at them. (AAPL) The company can get in big trouble with the market if they make people who usually make money lose money like how the Porsche family short squeezed a number of prominent hedge funds. Note that when hedge funds short the fuck out of a stock with borrowed money on borrowed stock it's not market manipulation, but if a family were not to trade their stock because they have no need to create liquidity for market participants then it's market manipulation.

The rule in the finance industry is that if the banks aren't able to profit from your stock price movements then your company is probably doing something illegal according to the securities industry.

Unless you are exercising a trading strategy (expectations game) you should generally not give a crap about stock price movements, instead you should look to things like moats, book values, and other things and then check whether the stock price is a reasonably accurate reflection of the value of the company. In this case Yahoo is probably a decent investment which is why many companies are looking to buy the asset.

Re: Yahoo Announces Resignation of Jerry Yang

#19

Post by bluedevil2k » Tue, Jan 17, 2012, 11:51 PM UTC

gcb wrote: post #16

bluedevil2k wrote: post #5

I'd be interested to learn about his views and opinions on Yahoo during these past 15+ years. From the various things I've read about him, he seems like he was just a nerd at heart who wasn't interested in the entire business side of Yahoo, and when Yahoo started exploding, he had that "Allen/Woz" mentality of missing the "good old days". I heard about the stories (fair or not) of him spending more time on the golf c…

when he said "No" to Microsoft's offer for acquisition, a very foolish move looking back. name companies acquired by Microsoft when microsoft already had competing products, which ended up well for both parties. honest question. I have to believe there are a couple. and i'd like to know about.

His job was to do what was best for shareholders, not his employees and definitely not himself. Tough to argue that turning down $33 for the current $15.50 was best for shareholders.

Re: Yahoo Announces Resignation of Jerry Yang

#20

Post by 3am » Tue, Jan 17, 2012, 11:53 PM UTC

gcb wrote: post #16

bluedevil2k wrote: post #5

I'd be interested to learn about his views and opinions on Yahoo during these past 15+ years. From the various things I've read about him, he seems like he was just a nerd at heart who wasn't interested in the entire business side of Yahoo, and when Yahoo started exploding, he had that "Allen/Woz" mentality of missing the "good old days". I heard about the stories (fair or not) of him spending more time on the golf c…

when he said "No" to Microsoft's offer for acquisition, a very foolish move looking back. name companies acquired by Microsoft when microsoft already had competing products, which ended up well for both parties. honest question. I have to believe there are a couple. and i'd like to know about.

I think that was said from a shareholder/owner perspective. Microsoft's offer was for more than double Yahoo's current price per share, and that was 4 years ago.