This is the correct answer. Matt Levine did quite a long writeup about this a while back: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-04-17/how-can-yahoo-be-wor

This is the correct answer. Matt Levine did quite a long writeup about this a while back: http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-04-17/how-can-yahoo-be-worth-less-than-zero http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2014-04-17/how-can-yah... Taking an uncharitable view, Yahoo!'s core business actually has negative value -- and the current round of layoffs is a direct result of Wall Street pressure to stop subsidizing said core business and preserve the value of the Ali Baba stock.