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Microsoft bids $44.6B to buy Yahoo (2008)

reuters.com

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Re: Microsoft bids $44.6B to buy Yahoo (2008)

#31

Post by _ea1k »

hkmurakami wrote: post #28
andy_ppp wrote: post #15

I worked at Yahoo! when this was going on, I’m amazed the share holders didn’t sue Jerry Yang and the board for avoiding this sale. Yahoo had very little of technological value and was actively trying to destroy its own search business amongst other properties at the time. They really were in a prime position and bungled it extremely badly, I think they had maybe 20% of the search market at the time. Carol Bartz late…

Shareholders did great holding onto Yahoo! stock, as it’s Alibaba holdings would perform magnificently.

I could be wrong, but I don't think that was enough to push it back above the 44.6B valuation.

Re: Microsoft bids $44.6B to buy Yahoo (2008)

#33

Post by mrweasel »

banana_giraffe wrote: post #27
mrweasel wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How could Yahoo possibly be worth that much money? It certainly not worthless, Yahoo still have great brand, nostalgic even. $5 Billion is a bit of a strech though.

The sale also includes AOL, and brands like TechCrunch and Engadget. Still not sure it adds up to $5 billion, though.

Perhaps the sites are only valuable as a bundle?

The brand value of both AOL and Yahoo has to add up to something, but TechCrunch and Engadget is most likely just thrown in for free to get rid of both sites.

On its own I believe that Yahoo Finans could be a profitable little site.

Re: Microsoft bids $44.6B to buy Yahoo (2008)

#34

Post by fullshark »

trinovantes wrote: post #22

It's amazing how much the internet has changed in just 13 years. Makes me wonder if the tech giants of today will become irrelevant by 2030s or we're past the point where the giants are rich enough to just buy up anything with potential while their original products fade into obscurity.

If anything it's more amazing how much it hasn't changed lately. The early days were a wild west full of market share battles and failed startups/ideas. Now the market appears mature with a few companies with strangleholds on it until perhaps a technological sea change catches them off guard.

Re: Microsoft bids $44.6B to buy Yahoo (2008)

#36

Post by flavius29663 »

mrweasel wrote: post #21
9front wrote: post #18

"Apollo to Buy Yahoo, AOL From Verizon for $5 Billion" from today's edition of WJS.

How could Yahoo possibly be worth that much money? It certainly not worthless, Yahoo still have great brand, nostalgic even. $5 Billion is a bit of a strech though.

Yahoo still ranks very high on Alexa. At 11, it's above Wikipedia(12) and just one position below Amazon (10). Reddit is at 19. Microsoft is at 21

https://www.alexa.com/topsites

Re: Microsoft bids $44.6B to buy Yahoo (2008)

#37

Post by bazooka_penguin »

andy_ppp wrote: post #15

I worked at Yahoo! when this was going on, I’m amazed the share holders didn’t sue Jerry Yang and the board for avoiding this sale. Yahoo had very little of technological value and was actively trying to destroy its own search business amongst other properties at the time. They really were in a prime position and bungled it extremely badly, I think they had maybe 20% of the search market at the time. Carol Bartz late…

   Pure Harvard Business School spreadsheet stuff.
Business degrees might be destroying the nation.

Re: Microsoft bids $44.6B to buy Yahoo (2008)

#38

Post by kbutler »

acheron wrote: post #24
samgranieri wrote: post #12

That summer my girlfriend at the time and I were laughing at the different combinations of possible combined companies. Yahoogle was one. This one would have been Microhoo

Late 90's joke: Yahoo and Netscape are going to merge and move their headquarters to Israel: Net'n'Yahoo

WordPerfect bought a little company I worked for, "SoftSolutions". Then Novell bought WordPerfect.

The combined company? NoPerfectSolutions

Re: Microsoft bids $44.6B to buy Yahoo (2008)

#40

Post by kbutler »

Kye wrote: post #23
smcl wrote: post #7

> Yahoo would give Microsoft dominance in Web banner ads used by corporate brand advertisers Wow for some reason I believed that by 2008 Google was already the dominant online ads player

This was around when Google bought DoubleClick. A good podcast episode on it: https://share.transistor.fm/s/66bcbec6

I'd have to peg that purchase as the inflection point turning away from "don't be evil."
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