That article was way too long to read on my device. A summary, 1/8 of the length, would have given me all of the necessary information.
What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly
101–110 of 288 posts
Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly
#102> By definition, Yahoo's directors know how to spend Yahoo's cash reserves best. This is absolutely incorrect. There are many instances in which there is a personal financial connection between a board member and an acquired company. For example, a board member is a limited in a VC fund. Didn't bother reading after that.
Ironic. The post says: "But it's really not ok to act functionally illiterate when you're not actually illiterate, when an advanced society that once put a man on the moon worked so hard to educate you." If you'd read the text more carefully you wouldn't have missed the sarcasm of the passage you were so quick to dismiss. He was being sarcastic!
I didn't see any sarcasm about that; through the rest of the essay he seemed to continue to take at face value that Yahoo's management is doing what they think right for Yahoo. The summly acquisition being some sort of self-dealing fraud would contradict his entire point.
Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly
#103I think the author makes this comment: "Summly's entire business model seems to revolve around catering to this demographic. Frankly, it pains me." I reads like a critique of Chubby Checker's "Twist" from a professor a Julliard. Perhaps, and I say that because I can't know what they were really thinking, but perhaps that was the point. This company had successfully "catered to this demographic" (which was defined as…
>Maybe the goal was to get more people who could quickly assemble a MVP from existing APIs that appealed to the emerging cohort of buyers and trendsetters. There is a lot to be said for building the right thing ; but the actual ability to assemble such products are very common and even the very premium skills are definitely for sale at market rates much lower than $15MM per year.
The skills are common here, not in general, and $15MM (total, not per year) is a cost of purchasing the assembled infrastructure, not the idea and potential to build. I don't think this is a wise expenditure, but you're attacking it from a poor angle.
Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly
#104I thought a good bit about the reflection of TL;DR. My Gut reaction was to think we're heading to an idiocracy, but it could be people just getting smarter. Trust me I love the virtues of deep reading, but think of all the knowledge you could gain if it was done well? There is an entire business about providing executive summaries on books, news, and other important bits of information that we're inundated with. While I would cringe at a TL;DR for The Brothers Karamazov, I think there is some merit to being able to get a lot of tidbits quickly from a lot of news source. Would be very interesting to compare Fox, NYTimes, and the Washington Post on their 'gist.'
Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly
#105This post is full of anger, desperation and disdain, but of the exquisite kind, and the kind I agree with, so it's great!
Fantastic mini example of the point the author makes about TLDR's
I started reading your comment (first 9 words), nearly stopped reading it thinking "they don't get it," carried on for some reason and 5 words later it showed that I agreed with you completely!
Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly
#106As a fellow 17-year-old, I have nothing less than respect for Nick. You're obviously doing something right if you sell your company for $30M before you're an adult. Who cares if he's not an AI researcher? The scholar who wrote this article can't bash this kid's product until he actually builds something useful. If he came up with a revolutionary AI theory, great. But the people who take an experimental idea and see t…
> The scholar who wrote this article can't bash this kid's product until he actually builds something useful.
What kind of logic is that?
Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly
#107If this article's premise is correct, Yahoo is buying Summly in order to generate more news about Yahoo rather than the intrinsic value of Summly.
However, this article is adding to the flood of news about Yahoo acquiring Summly, thereby giving the purchase even more publicity. I wonder how many articles have taken the same approach.
Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly
#108" But it's critical to keep tabs on the ratio known as 'glue versus thought.' Sure, both imply progress and both are necessary. But the former is eminently mundane, replaceable, and outsource-able. The latter is typically what gives a company its edge, what is generally regarded as a competitive advantage. " I am in finance. I am glue. I take existing people, things (read: capital), and ideas and bolt them together.…
I think that his point is that glue is only as valuable as the product in which it's used. In the case of finance, it's the fact that they operate as the middleman, getting money from one place to another. The product isn't just getting people together, it's providing a smooth way to move money around. The other examples have a product where individual technologies were melded together to produce that specific produc…
I really like this reply. I was both in finance and technology and there is a degree of glue and thought in both. However, in this case it's about the false perception that was created to the outsiders about Summly's level of innovation.
Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly
#109[deleted]
Re: What's Actually Wrong with Yahoo's Purchase of Summly
#110Ouch. Still, hard to find fault with the analysis, no matter how unpopular it may be with much of the readership of HN. Many folks here would love to sell a company to Yahoo! for $30MM after 18mo with minimal engineering effort and download numbers probably below those of many folks reading the news on HN.
We should all be very happy. This is a sign that easy money is still out there for the clever individual. I applaud the kid for what he has done. Yahoo might be stupid, but we've known that for a long long time.
There are several factors at play there. It's the parents, the backers, and all the personal connections between them and Yahoo execs.
This deal is not about the tech, or the kid. The kid does sound smart though, so I am happy for him.