4 ms·

I feel like Yahoo would be best broken up into lots of tiny pieces which would have the opportunity to become little independent start-ups in their own right, t

by smegel 11y ago

I feel like Yahoo would be best broken up into lots of tiny pieces which would have the opportunity to become little independent start-ups in their own right, taking whatever "bit" they have and turning into a new concept and building a business around it. They need that injection of innovation and modern startup mentality which probably won't happen in a monolithic behemoth where everything is lumped together.

mey 11y ago
Conceptually, who would fund the spin offs?
- smegel 11y ago
  Sell off the parts of Yahoo still worth something to give each team some startup cash, and let them raise more from investors? I am sure many would also just be bought outright by other companies for the talent alone.
prostoalex 11y ago
As all of them would now have to pay for legal, accounting, recruiting, HR, customer support and other services that used to be shared as well as negotiate their own real estate leases, server purchases and data center leases, how many of these tiny pieces would generate enough cash flow to sustain themselves a few years down the road? If the business is ad-supported, a bigger player can negotiate better rates for their combined inventory, a smaller player is relegated to AdSense and similar.
- smegel 11y ago
  > As all of them would now have to pay for legal, accounting, recruiting, HR, customer support and other services True, but I guess this is true for all startups. And the reality is, for a bunch of guys and gals working out of a garage you don't need a lot of that stuff until you are actually successful. > how many of these tiny pieces would generate enough cash flow to sustain themselves a few years down the road Not many, and I guess that is the point. You are giving the worthy parts of Yahoo the freedom to succeed, while letting the dead wood go to dust. It seems the alternative is watching the whole thing die a slow death and there will be nothing left at all (apart from the not-really-Yahoo Alibaba and Yahoo Japan).
beambot 11y ago
Isn't that the idea behind Alphabet (formerly Google): Permit lots of small(er) independent companies under the same umbrella parent corp?
CM30 11y ago
Who would get the Yahoo domain name? Because if you spin off say, Mail, News and Games from Yahoo, all have depended on the yahoo.com domain name for their SEO and traffic. Could news.yahoo.com do well if it lost all its rankings because its domain name was kept by the remains of the main company? What about Yahoo Mail? It's likely one of the more popular parts of their business, but if it was spun off, then everyone would likely lose their email address. Not great for existing users. Flickr and Tumblr could easily return to being independent though.

by smegel 11y ago

mey 11y ago

Conceptually, who would fund the spin offs?

smegel 11y ago
Sell off the parts of Yahoo still worth something to give each team some startup cash, and let them raise more from investors? I am sure many would also just be bought outright by other companies for the talent alone.

prostoalex 11y ago

As all of them would now have to pay for legal, accounting, recruiting, HR, customer support and other services that used to be shared as well as negotiate their own real estate leases, server purchases and data center leases, how many of these tiny pieces would generate enough cash flow to sustain themselves a few years down the road? If the business is ad-supported, a bigger player can negotiate better rates for their combined inventory, a smaller player is relegated to AdSense and similar.

smegel 11y ago
> As all of them would now have to pay for legal, accounting, recruiting, HR, customer support and other services True, but I guess this is true for all startups. And the reality is, for a bunch of guys and gals working out of a garage you don't need a lot of that stuff until you are actually successful. > how many of these tiny pieces would generate enough cash flow to sustain themselves a few years down the road Not many, and I guess that is the point. You are giving the worthy parts of Yahoo the freedom to succeed, while letting the dead wood go to dust. It seems the alternative is watching the whole thing die a slow death and there will be nothing left at all (apart from the not-really-Yahoo Alibaba and Yahoo Japan).

beambot 11y ago

Isn't that the idea behind Alphabet (formerly Google): Permit lots of small(er) independent companies under the same umbrella parent corp?

CM30 11y ago

Who would get the Yahoo domain name? Because if you spin off say, Mail, News and Games from Yahoo, all have depended on the yahoo.com domain name for their SEO and traffic. Could news.yahoo.com do well if it lost all its rankings because its domain name was kept by the remains of the main company? What about Yahoo Mail? It's likely one of the more popular parts of their business, but if it was spun off, then everyone would likely lose their email address. Not great for existing users. Flickr and Tumblr could easily return to being independent though.