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

Marissa Mayer will close her old AI startup, sell assets to her new AI startup

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 117 posts

Re: Marissa Mayer will close her old AI startup, sell assets to her new AI startup

#101

Post by collingreen »

NickC25 wrote: post #46
azinman2 wrote: post #23

First a contacts app that bombed, and now an ai assistant? I fear she’s stuck in the past and now is in a beyond crowded space. Have any of her attempts post google worked?

>Have any of her attempts post google worked? Yes. She made a tremendous amount of money for herself while failing miserably at Yahoo!. Oh, you mean attempts at getting workable, groundbreaking new products out into the market with success? No.

She is clearly an amazing negotiator if nothing else. She made a spectacular amount of money running yahoo even faster into the ground. Imagine being paid 100M just to go away. Inspiring in its own way.

Re: Marissa Mayer will close her old AI startup, sell assets to her new AI startup

#102

Post by bix6 »

collingreen wrote: post #88
bix6 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe the company should just die? It failed and now they’re spinning out… why?

It did die. One way to look at it is do you want zero or do you want pennies on the dollar for it? Is it crappy? Yeah. Doubly so if being abused by the founder. There is a version of this that is just the best of two bad options though. It leaves a bad taste in my mouth when the founder doesn't share the same pain as the investors and the employees but such is life and it's hard to draw a line anyway, especially for…

I want zero. Give the LPs a loss and move on.

Re: Marissa Mayer will close her old AI startup, sell assets to her new AI startup

#104

Post by [deleted] »

azinman2 wrote: post #97
freeopinion wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on what you think she is attempting. If you consider that she is attempting to maintain a certain standard of living, then yes, it is working. There is a strange reality where you can get other people to pay you millions of dollars a year because somebody else previously paid you millions of dollars a year. You might have to keep shuffling who pays you, though.

According to the article it’s largely self paid. I’d also be surprised anyone for a pre-product startup is being paid millions a year to run it… even her.

[deleted]

Re: Marissa Mayer will close her old AI startup, sell assets to her new AI startup

#106

Post by crossroadsguy »

jacquesm wrote: post #67

The eternal sunshine of the spotless start-up. Mayer's track record is good enough that she's able to attract new investors easily enough but I wonder if they actually expect a return or if they see it as a lottery ticket.

From what I have seen in the Bangalore VC scene, a founder doesn't at all have to have a good track record to attract VC money again and again. They just have to have raised before, and they will raise again, no matter how badly and shadily they sunk the last ship(s). Maybe it's different in the OG valley.

Re: Marissa Mayer will close her old AI startup, sell assets to her new AI startup

#107

Post by crossroadsguy »

cosmicgadget wrote: post #19
computerphage wrote: post #10

"due to privacy concerns about privacy" This strikes me as a particularly funny typo

Probably wrote "due to concerns about privacy" then realized it should be "due to privacy concerns" and forgot to remove the original bit. Many such cases.

Definitely not using Apple's epic proofread feature.

Re: Marissa Mayer will close her old AI startup, sell assets to her new AI startup

#108

Post by SMAAART »

newfocogi wrote: post #5

"Former Yahoo CEO Marissa Meyer is closing the doors on her consumer software startup Sunshine, and is selling the company’s assets to her new AI startup, Dazzle" and "all of Sunshine’s employees will move to the new company". Under what conditions is it better to buy the assets and hire the employees instead of just change the name and product offering of the company? Is it just to get the investors off the cap tabl…

When new capital is needed, the old investors (investors in the old company) are given the equivalent of cents on the dollar on the new company, while the new investors do the usual.

Old investors are welcome to put new money into the new venture, of course.

Re: Marissa Mayer will close her old AI startup, sell assets to her new AI startup

#110

Post by itemize123 »

inerte wrote: post #90
toast0 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yes. She made a tremendous amount of money for herself while failing miserably at Yahoo!. I was at Yahoo from 2004-2011, so I've got my opinions, but I think failing miserably at Yahoo is like the default option. It was a great gig to take in 2012 --- if you do well, well then it's clearly your leadership; if you don't do well, it's that Yahoo wasn't salvageable.

I was there too. The Alibaba investment is what doomed Yahoo. Investors wanted their money and didn't care at all about Yahoo's core business.

would you explain a bit more? Investor in Yahoo only cared about Alibaba?
Post reply on HN