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Verizon Sells AOL and Yahoo to Apollo for $5B

nytimes.com

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Re: Verizon Sells AOL and Yahoo to Apollo for $5B

#221

Post by ksec »

bitwize wrote: post #137
ksec wrote: post #89

A headline with 5G but not a single mention of it in the article. If any insider from Verizon may be could help explain why their insistence on mmWave 5G for Phones. ( And Phone only, not fixed Wireless internet access ) It doesn't make sense to me when the spec (3GPP) were announced, doesn't make sense when Verizon actually announced it, and still doesn't make any sense when they are now up and running. Both from a…

For the same reason Sprint went all in on WiMAX "4G" about ten years back: they think it gives them a value-add.

The tech wasn't that bad. I mean WiMax is something like 80% if not 90% of what is TD-LTE today. Which Sprint is still using right now.

You can only blame Intel for WiMax Failure. Over Confidence, Over Hyped, poor delivery and at the time, nobody like them. I think it was 2008/9?

Re: Verizon Sells AOL and Yahoo to Apollo for $5B

#222

Post by blihp »

kumarvvr wrote: post #168
lbsnake7 wrote: post #116

Can someone help me understand this from an investment perspective? AOL and Yahoo were worth a combined $400 billion in the 90s. Was investing in either of those companies essentially a fail? Were all those investors wrong or did they somehow recoup their investment through dividends and such over the last 25 years to justify that market cap? Currently the market is telling me that Facebook is a $900+ billion company…

The stockmarket is like a round robin thingy, putting it lightly. All those who hold shares in FB, combined, are holding paper that is worth 900B. However, if even 10% of those wanted to sell their holdings at a time, the price would fall and the total holdings would be worth less for all. Now, why are they holding the shares then? Two things come into play. Firstly, say 5 years down the line, the holders have confid…

In other words, the greater fool theory.

Re: Verizon Sells AOL and Yahoo to Apollo for $5B

#223

Post by airstrike »

CryptoBanker wrote: post #183
airstrike wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your view of how LBOs work is really misinformed. You picked 3 famous PE deals that failed, but those are exceptions. Apollo alone has done 150 private equity transactions, the vast majority of which have been tremendously successful otherwise investors would not be giving them more money to continue to invest.

Successful from the point of the PE firm is not the same as successful from the point of view of the acquired company

It is if the alternative is to be woefully out-competed.

Re: Verizon Sells AOL and Yahoo to Apollo for $5B

#225

Post by airstrike »

_jal wrote: post #172
airstrike wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your view of how LBOs work is really misinformed. You picked 3 famous PE deals that failed, but those are exceptions. Apollo alone has done 150 private equity transactions, the vast majority of which have been tremendously successful otherwise investors would not be giving them more money to continue to invest.

A lot of PE follows a well-understood playbook. Buy a player in a settled industry, cut costs (== reduce maintenance, make the workforce cost less, etc.) and milk it for as long as possible. That tends to work for investors; customers and employees, well. The Artist Formerly Known as SolarWinds is PE owned.

They don't milk it for as long as possible. In fact, they exit the investment in 3-5 years. Anything longer and their IRR dwindles fast.

Re: Verizon Sells AOL and Yahoo to Apollo for $5B

#226

Post by airstrike »

kolbe wrote: post #191
airstrike wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, and they presumably do that to create value rather than destroy. How is that going to hurt Yahoo Finance again?

There is zero upside to the free public API as far as I can tell. Granted it's low cost to keep it up, but it's not generating any revenue.

It is generating revenue if it attracts customers to the paid tier.

Re: Verizon Sells AOL and Yahoo to Apollo for $5B

#227

Post by basch »

oblio wrote: post #210
basch wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually think their real opportunity is reviving Yahoo Messenger / AIM over the top of web sites. Similar to facebook chat functioning at the bottom/side of the screen while browsing facebook, if you are on Yahoo Finance, Fantasy, or any of the news sites, having chat overlayed. Opening Yahoo News to get to chat. It creates this cyclical feedback loop of opening news to get to chat, and opening chat to get to news…

> I actually think their real opportunity is reviving Yahoo Messenger / AIM over the top of web sites. YM! at least has been killed. They've migrated the service and one day I received a notification that all my contacts and the message archive would be deleted.

AIM was killed as well.

Re: Verizon Sells AOL and Yahoo to Apollo for $5B

#228

Post by utopcell »

mrweasel wrote: post #214
utopcell wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DDG was a collection of perl scripts around Yahoo BOSS (Build You Own Search Service), which is now backed by Bing. Nowadays, DDG has vastly outgrown its original serving by adding their most crucial ingredient: Privacy FUD.

That still doesn't really answer the question of how DDG is a Yahoo customer. BOSS is dead, and replaced by an ad program, which DDG doesn't use.

That's true, I was just explaining why one would think DDG is a Yahoo customer.

Re: Verizon Sells AOL and Yahoo to Apollo for $5B

#229

Post by basch »

Apocryphon wrote: post #111
oaththrowaway wrote: post #69

Yahoo employee. AMA

Is the data from Yahoo Answers, Yahoo Groups, and GeoCities really deleted or is there a chance that they could be restored somehow?

You dont think its the other way around? "We dont want the liability of certain trash, please dispose of it ahead of the sale."

Re: Verizon Sells AOL and Yahoo to Apollo for $5B

#230

Post by dboreham »

dweekly wrote: post #115
ksec wrote: post #89

A headline with 5G but not a single mention of it in the article. If any insider from Verizon may be could help explain why their insistence on mmWave 5G for Phones. ( And Phone only, not fixed Wireless internet access ) It doesn't make sense to me when the spec (3GPP) were announced, doesn't make sense when Verizon actually announced it, and still doesn't make any sense when they are now up and running. Both from a…

The reason why they are heavily marketing their mmWave 5G is because they are charging an additional $10/mo/line for access and implying (falsely) that most folks with a modern phone will experience a much faster and lower latency connection at most times. In truth, consumers will only be able to connect to the mmWave network on a handful of outdoor street corners in a few metros - the frequency band (60GHz) does not…

I got the impression the primary use case for 60GHz was large sports stadia.
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