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Didn't people used to complain about do-nothing managers looming over their pet projects and padding the payroll with their lackeys? The investors aren't tryin

by bko 11y ago

Didn't people used to complain about do-nothing managers looming over their pet projects and padding the payroll with their lackeys? The investors aren't trying to fix Yahoo. By some estimates, the core business of Yahoo has a negative market value meaning they're not adding anything of value. Yahoo is a dying business and they don't really hold a competitive advantage in anything worthwhile. It may make sense to wind the company down and give back the capital and resources to more worthy ventures. Yahoo tried rebranding and hired a high profile CEO to no avail. It's nothing personal but if it were as easy as cutting a few projects, offering better perks and hiring good people, Yahoo would have done so already.

avn2109 11y ago
>> "By some estimates, the core business of Yahoo has a negative market value..." I dislike those estimates. Yahoo is the Nth highest-traffic site in the English speaking world, where N is probably < 100. It strains credulity to imagine that a site with that much traction truly has negative value. Edit: [0] claims that Yahoo is the 6th most popular site on the web. [0] http://www.alexa.com/topsites http://www.alexa.com/topsites
- cpeterso 11y ago
  According to Wikipedia, Yahoo!'s 2014 net income was $7.52 billion. Do they get income from their stake in Alibaba?
  - syjer 11y ago
    They sold a lot of shares during the alibaba IPO in 2014 : https://investor.yahoo.net/secfiling.cfm?filingid=1193125-14-359011&CIK=1011006 https://investor.yahoo.net/secfiling.cfm?filingid=1193125-14... .
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > Yahoo is the Nth highest-traffic site in the English speaking world, where N is probably > 100. That's true of most sites in the English speaking world. If you remove the fuzziness of "probably", its true of all but 100. > It strains credulity to imagine that a site with that much traction truly has negative value. That only makes a little bit of sense if you flip the > to be a <. But even then, traffic is a cost driver; its only worth something if you have an effective way of monetize it. "We lose money on every transaction, but make up for it in volume" is as much of a fallacy with web sites where the transactions are "visits" as it is for any other type of interaction.
gohrt 11y ago
Generating value for shareholders is different from generating value. Yahoo may be a fantastic charitable enterprise, making products users like well enough.
Aloha 11y ago
not growing does not equal dying.

by bko 11y ago

avn2109 11y ago

>> "By some estimates, the core business of Yahoo has a negative market value..." I dislike those estimates. Yahoo is the Nth highest-traffic site in the English speaking world, where N is probably < 100. It strains credulity to imagine that a site with that much traction truly has negative value. Edit: [0] claims that Yahoo is the 6th most popular site on the web. [0] http://www.alexa.com/topsites http://www.alexa.com/topsites

cpeterso 11y ago
According to Wikipedia, Yahoo!'s 2014 net income was $7.52 billion. Do they get income from their stake in Alibaba?
- syjer 11y ago
  They sold a lot of shares during the alibaba IPO in 2014 : https://investor.yahoo.net/secfiling.cfm?filingid=1193125-14-359011&CIK=1011006 https://investor.yahoo.net/secfiling.cfm?filingid=1193125-14... .
dragonwriter 11y ago
> Yahoo is the Nth highest-traffic site in the English speaking world, where N is probably > 100. That's true of most sites in the English speaking world. If you remove the fuzziness of "probably", its true of all but 100. > It strains credulity to imagine that a site with that much traction truly has negative value. That only makes a little bit of sense if you flip the > to be a <. But even then, traffic is a cost driver; its only worth something if you have an effective way of monetize it. "We lose money on every transaction, but make up for it in volume" is as much of a fallacy with web sites where the transactions are "visits" as it is for any other type of interaction.

gohrt 11y ago

Generating value for shareholders is different from generating value. Yahoo may be a fantastic charitable enterprise, making products users like well enough.

Aloha 11y ago

not growing does not equal dying.