The Summly deal makes no sense • Hacker News Board

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#251

Post by gavanwoolery » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 9:38 PM UTC

pbreit wrote: post #206

gavanwoolery wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually this is a very common scheme in Silicon Valley -- public companies "throwing away" money on relatively worthless startups. It is a good way to siphon money out of the stock market and into the pockets of VCs and founders -- and I would not be surprised if the person who pushes the acquisition gets a cut of the money too, or other "favors" in the future. The company knows its going to can the product and the…

It might be something like that but with less malice. First, Summly and the entrepreneur are far from worthless. But to your point, a bunch of decent angel investors just got a pretty nice check from Yahoo. The "deal guy" builds some reputation but unlikely benefits monetarily in any nefarious way. I think the OP sentiment and many comments here are mostly classic HN resentment of success.

I agree - sorry I think I should have chosen better wording. (Where I said "relatively worthless" I should have said "overly-valued")

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#252

Post by ecdavis » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 10:17 PM UTC

seivan wrote: post #37

ecdavis wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So he's a teenager?

I was a teenager, I did no such thing. That's borderline depressing, given how much bullshit he is spewing out. He comes from money, and give talks about shutting down and how they will lose money.

We were all teenagers once and we all had different experiences. I'm sure we all did things when we were young that we now find mortally embarrassing. Unlike most of our embarrassing moments, D'Aloisio's happens to have been written up in a Gizmodo article.

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#253

Post by ecdavis » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 10:33 PM UTC

ruswick wrote: post #177

ecdavis wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So he's a teenager?

That is not "teenage" behavior. That is sociopathy. He outright lied to this reporter, then berated him with dozens of emails. Regular people, "teenagers" included, do not behave that way. (I, as someone who is comparable in age to D'Aloisio, would never try this kind of shit, especially to someone affiliated with a major news organization; nor can I think of any of my peers who would. I honestly don't understand why…

It's certainly not sociopathy. I can think of a number of reasons why he might have behaved that way and I've seen similar behavior from similar people in similar circumstances.

Your level of maturity is an asset which not everyone has at your age. The reason people are more permissive of poor behavior from young people is that they are still learning the ways of the world. Hopefully D'Aloisio learnt from this experience.

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#254

Post by easytiger » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 11:08 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #191

easytiger wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> investigated this sort of tech and built prototypes, only to get shot down by middle management. Bingo. in fairness the culture there prob prevented people from even feeling this innovative and self motivated. I've worked in a couple of large orgs where i've told management about great little cheap ideas that just get ummed and ahhed and then forgotten (despite in 2 instances using my own free time to make a protot…

Having been in the position of shooting down all to often, the challenge for managers here is that often we get 100 absolutely crap ideas for every gem, yet the developers who bring them to us often are totally blinkered about which ideas are a fit for the company and/or are remotely realistic. That makes it very easy to make calls that in retrospect might seem extremely stupid. Even more so, many of the engineers wh…

Agreed. Which is why I don't pitch too many ideas anymore in my current role unless I've done some exploratory coding.

That has led to 2 different internal products and I'm presently working on something to replace a piece of commercial software that they paid almost $1 million for and doesn't work/has serious limitations. However I did it out of band because I found it interesting. I guess it comes down to put up or shut up.

Often when you come up with an idea, then go to try and do it you realise its 100x times harder than you thought

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#255

Post by L0j1k » Tue, Mar 26, 2013, 11:43 PM UTC

cududa wrote: post #208

L0j1k wrote: post #15

What I read in this piece of news (though not really any article in particular) was: "Yahoo spent 30 million to attract the attention of high school kids"...

Is there anything inherently wrong with that? After High School I had my pick of tech companies and projects to join. And frankly, a good position in yahoo working with someone like Nick and Marisa Mayer seems pretty fun to me.

I don't know and truthfully, I don't care. I'm not in high school, after all. Nor am I a shareholder of Yahoo.

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#256

Post by dennisgorelik » Wed, Mar 27, 2013, 12:43 AM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #179

jamesaguilar wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> unfair It's laughable that a programmer would worry about how unfair the industry is on the top end. Do you get how lucky we are compared even to other engineers? To say nothing of service workers who work much harder for much less.

Every now and again, if I feel I need more money, I take a look at http://www.globalrichlist.com/ and plop in my current salary. Though the numbers are probably a bit dated by now, it's quite sobering.

That helps to put things into perspective.

The tool is buggy though: after ~$1M/year it does not change results.

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#257

Post by mchusma » Wed, Mar 27, 2013, 5:46 AM UTC

orangethirty wrote: post #148

larrik wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought the point was that Yahoo, a public company, was throwing away 30 million for no apparent gain.

The are buying traction. That's 30 million dollars worth of it. It could make them back that much money by getting people to start using Yahoo again.

I can tell you as a founder of a startup with about a million users, the rule of thumb right now is 10 million is the new 1 million. No VC cares.

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#258

Post by gavanwoolery » Wed, Mar 27, 2013, 6:44 AM UTC

chatmasta wrote: post #129

kyro wrote: post #123

For some who need perspective: Right now, somewhere in the world, a child is being born into an uberly rich family. That child will grow up to inherit millions for absolutely no work. He'll live the good life full of yachts and private jets. Right now, somewhere in the world, there is a party happening full of gorgeous wealthy people who need not lift a finger to attain the luxuries that they have. Their success is o…

Where did the article make any mention of jealousy or bitterness (other than the "hurt feelings" of Yahoo's engineers)? The article describes the stupidity of this acquisition from a business perspective. The fact that your comment has received the most upvotes indicates that people generally agree with your sentiment that nobody should be bitter or jealous. Yet nobody is suggesting any bitterness or jealousy... So w…

I think you should have the top comment - but I am willing to admit I'm jealous anyway. :) Jealous, but thankful that I was never made a millionaire at age 17...because that 17 year old will no longer get to see what the real world is like.

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#259

Post by hojoff79 » Wed, Mar 27, 2013, 8:00 AM UTC

kyro wrote: post #123

For some who need perspective: Right now, somewhere in the world, a child is being born into an uberly rich family. That child will grow up to inherit millions for absolutely no work. He'll live the good life full of yachts and private jets. Right now, somewhere in the world, there is a party happening full of gorgeous wealthy people who need not lift a finger to attain the luxuries that they have. Their success is o…

Right place right time seems to be your shot at all these people, most of life is about that!

Re: The Summly deal makes no sense

#260

Post by hojoff79 » Wed, Mar 27, 2013, 8:03 AM UTC

kyro wrote: post #123

For some who need perspective: Right now, somewhere in the world, a child is being born into an uberly rich family. That child will grow up to inherit millions for absolutely no work. He'll live the good life full of yachts and private jets. Right now, somewhere in the world, there is a party happening full of gorgeous wealthy people who need not lift a finger to attain the luxuries that they have. Their success is o…

Right place right time seems to sum up all these people, and most of life is about that! But the only way to fight it is work your ass off and put yourself in a position to be at the right place at the right time (give yourself a platform for an investor to find you for a high acqui-hire price cough cough what happened here). For the many people who complain all the time on this site and critique but have never started / built or done anything except complain, you have no ground to stand on. Sitting on your computer complaining has (almost) never put someone in a right place, right time opportunity (except when blogs were first invented)