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

The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr

twitter.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 191 posts

Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr

#101

Post by seiji »

How does it feel to work at a company when it pays over a billion dollars to 20-somethings working on the opposite coast?

It's not mentally reconcilable. The only way not to go crazy is if you don't think about it at all, but that's just denying the reality of you being exploited while getting few of the benefits.

Some people say, "Well, I have 'job security!'" Is "job security," the greatest corporate-serving propaganda of our generation, really worth $800,000 per year in surrendered earnings?

Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr

#103

Post by pseut »

gnok wrote: post #76
zaidf wrote: post #63

This makes it pretty simple to judge Marissa Mayer's performance at least in the next year. If Tumblr shows any sign of failure, its pretty much equivalent of Marissa Mayer failing at Yahoo. If tumblr shows signs of progress not seen Pre-acquisition, it's a sign of an ex-Googler making a smart acquisition AND making it succeed in the long run. Google is the best company when it comes to making large acquisitions work…

I disagree. We don't know what Yahoo wants to do with Tumblr. All we have are rumors, a WSJ report and tons of idle speculation. Without knowing what the intended end game is, I don't see how we can call the acquisition a "success" or "failure", much less the CEO's. I also don't agree that "a sign of progress" is "making it succeed in the long run". Google is no genius with large acquisitions either. Motorola and Blo…

For a random $30mil acquisition (hypothetically), there's a lot of gray area where it's hard to judge whether the overall benefit to the parent company is net positive or net negative. For a $1 bil acquisition, it's a lot easier to judge and the stakes are a lot higher.

Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr

#104

Post by dmor »

The original headline from WSJ was “Yahoo to Buy Tumblr for $1.1 Billion” which is obviously questionable since they state in the same article that Tumblr has not actually confirmed the deal.

Now other outlets are reporting it as a done deal when it isn't. http://www.daniellemorrill.com/2013/05/in-race-to-be-first-o...

Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr

#105

Post by dmor »

sethbannon wrote: post #102

This is great news for the NYC startup ecosystem, which had been lacking in the billion dollar exits that create the next generation of entrepreneur-investors.

How many of Tumblr's employees have been with the company more than a year or two? It sounds like they were only 20 employees at the end of 2010 [1] so I'm curious how many people actually got significant enough vesting to get the cash to call themselves entrepreneur-investors.

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/19/tumblr-funding-office-hires...

Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr

#106

Post by Zigurd »

Yahoo has to make acquisitions like this.

There is room for more full-service Internet ecosystems. Microsoft has under-invested in their ecosystem. Or maybe they can't decide if they want a full-service consumer-oriented ecosystem.

No overseas-based ecosystems are strong enough to enter the US market. Yahoo is strong in some markets in Asia. If they can buy a couple more top brands and shine-up Flikr, Yahoo Finance, and some others, they will be in good shape.

Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr

#107

Post by [deleted] »

jamescun wrote: post #12

I wonder how this will pan out for Tumblr with Marissa Meyer at the helm. If we look at Flick (bought by yahoo in 2005), it hasn't seen much innovation or new features in the last 8 years and has been mostly coasting. I wonder if this will be the case for Tumblr under Marissa's leadership.

[deleted]

Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr

#108

Post by uthgard »

Does anyone know how they get traction the very first time ? It's interesting how they got this far while the initial reception seems cold [1]. What kind of marketing they do ? what's the vertical ? answer from quora[2] doesnt satisfy me.

1. https://www.hnsearch.com/search#request/submissions&q=tu...

2. http://www.quora.com/Tumblr/How-did-Tumblr-get-traction

Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr

#109

Post by Zigurd »

gnok wrote: post #76
zaidf wrote: post #63

This makes it pretty simple to judge Marissa Mayer's performance at least in the next year. If Tumblr shows any sign of failure, its pretty much equivalent of Marissa Mayer failing at Yahoo. If tumblr shows signs of progress not seen Pre-acquisition, it's a sign of an ex-Googler making a smart acquisition AND making it succeed in the long run. Google is the best company when it comes to making large acquisitions work…

I disagree. We don't know what Yahoo wants to do with Tumblr. All we have are rumors, a WSJ report and tons of idle speculation. Without knowing what the intended end game is, I don't see how we can call the acquisition a "success" or "failure", much less the CEO's. I also don't agree that "a sign of progress" is "making it succeed in the long run". Google is no genius with large acquisitions either. Motorola and Blo…

Motorola stands out as a clunker. It is very expensive, even for Google. It is a distraction for management. It is a threat to Google's culture. It fails to be a stick to beat patent trolls. It has all the problems of an underperforming mobile OEM, while breeding doubt among Google's important partners. And all these criticisms were leveled by many people before Google bought Motorola. Some things really are plain to see.

So far, Meyer is doing what needs to be done to turn Yahoo into a first tier competitor. Who knows if she will succeed, but it's good to see them try.

Re: The Yahoo board has approved a deal to pay $1.1 billion in cash for Tumblr

#110

Post by Zigurd »

patrickaljord wrote: post #83
gnok wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. We don't know what Yahoo wants to do with Tumblr. All we have are rumors, a WSJ report and tons of idle speculation. Without knowing what the intended end game is, I don't see how we can call the acquisition a "success" or "failure", much less the CEO's. I also don't agree that "a sign of progress" is "making it succeed in the long run". Google is no genius with large acquisitions either. Motorola and Blo…

Google is just getting started with Motorola so it's too soon to tell and I'm pretty sure that Blogger has been a huge success (through adsense) and many successful blogs uses it. It went down though since Facebook and Twitter for obvious reasons but the same thing happened to most blogging platforms.

Google needs to be finished with Motorola.

"Just getting started" is what you hear from Nokia. That's not a good sound.

Post reply on HN