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Woot To Be Acquired By Amazon
- daveambrose 16y agoGreat purchase on the part of Amazon. Woot! has been an amazing pioneer in impulse purchasing on the web and was the first of many companies that got me excited about starting my own. Congrats guys!
- mortenjorck 16y agoThe funny thing for me about Woot's status as an impulse-purchase store is that my impulse control has always been just strong enough to allow the simple step of creating an account to stop me from ever committing to a purchase. As completely ridiculous as it may sound, being able to log in with my Amazon account and one-click™ that amazingly cheap recertified Roomba is probably going to work on me.
- megamark16 16y agoI have a Woot account but they take forever to ship (I think I waited 3 weeks for three sets of earbuds), so that itself sometimes deters me from buying. Combine the awesome deal on a Roomba with free 2 day shipping and I'm screwed :-)
- gxti 16y agoBah! Not only is slow shipping disturbingly cheap, but it's like Christmas when it finally shows up because you completely forgot that you'd bought anything!
- viggity 16y agoI thought woot was purchased by Yahoo not too long ago?
- viggity 16y agoApparently it was just some sort of partnership deal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woot http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woot
- ja27 16y agoJust think of the new Bag of Crap possibilities. I'm sure Amazon warehouses are full of stuff they need to dispose of.
- ja27 16y agoMaybe Amazon has 5,000 laptop bags with no straps.
- kqr2 16y agoI wonder if it will be even harder to get a Bandolier of Carrots now. Hopefully, Woot will leverage Amazon's cloud infrastructure to avoid the dreaded "server unavailable" messages.
- tcdent 16y agoFrom the CEO's email: ...we’re geeked about the opportunities to tap into that knowledge and those resources, especially on the technology side.
- icey 16y agoThe CEO's statement: http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=13390 http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=13390
- zhyder 16y agoThat's such a cool statement. If I can't be a CEO like that, I hope I have one like that as my boss some day.
- seiwyn 16y agoIts funny and entertaining, but I still feel more confused than informed.
- malbiniak 16y agokeep in mind, being cool doesn't always make you a good leader, but being a good leader is always cool.
- ivankirigin 16y agobeing a good leader is always cool like when you need to make tough decisions and fire people?
- outotrai 16y agoI'm sure the remaining employees appreciate your keeping the company afloat.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- malbiniak 16y agoi may have taken the original comment out of context. i've seen a couple CEOs being cool (hip, funny, etc.) when they needed a leader. i think that's dangerous, and that's the point i meant to make. specifically to yours, no, its not cool to fire people, but i would rather hear well rationalized case for deciding to let me go (assuming it wasn't performance related) instead of a cleverly written kthxbai. still, that even that wouldn't be cool.
- thunk 16y agoIt was a great price, but only available for one day.
- phreanix 16y agoMan I love how this guy wrote this letter. Tongue in cheek works perfectly for Woot, and I hope Amazon knows better to keep in the background and let Woot do what Woot does best. I can't even decide which paragraph I love best. (edited in an attempt to copy/paste a quote.)
- fletchowns 16y agoThis one made me laugh out loud: Other than that, we plan to continue to run Woot the way we have always run Woot, with a wall of ideas and a dartboard. From a practical point of view, it will be as if we are simply adding one person to the organizational hierarchy, except that one person will just happen to be a billion-dollar company that could buy and sell each and every one of you like you were office furniture.
- hazmattron 16y agoTo me, part of the appeal of Woot! is its nonchalance and small, independent aesthetic. I hope it doesn't lose this in the process of becoming an Amazon company.
- klous 16y agoIs "Woot Prime" shipping possible now instead of $5 shipping on $10 items?
- logic 16y agoAmazon has been making some interesting moves lately; attempting to change their internal culture through acquisition, perhaps? (See Zappos.)
- sliverstorm 16y agoMy hunch is they can feel or see stagnation on the horizon, and are trying to mix things up a bit. Sort of the same as drinking the blood of young virgins (hot new startups) so that the old witch (Amazon) can reclaim some of her youth. I think the chances of success are a bit better than the blood route though!
- mkramlich 16y agowoot!
- alttab 16y agoIts been interesting watching Amazon's acquisition strategy. The deal-sealer for me was the video of the monkey rapping about it: http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=13391 http://www.woot.com/Blog/ViewEntry.aspx?Id=13391
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- jistein 16y agoYeah, I can't really think of many other companies that acquire smaller companies, and then let them operate with their money as autonomous entities. (No sarcasm.) Apple and Microsoft surely don't, at least.
- smackfu 16y agoAmazon is even creating separately branded subsidiaries from scratch, like Endless.com.
- dkasper 16y agoPrice paid was $110 Million all cash - http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/30/woot-amazon/ http://techcrunch.com/2010/06/30/woot-amazon/
- kd0amg 16y agoAnd $5 for shipping? Or can you send a company through Snail^WSmartPost?
- hop 16y agoDamn, did the founder(s) have full equity?
- icey 16y agoSingle founder, no investors (as far as I'm aware)
- enjo 16y agoAll cash is great, but man the MAA market must still be soft if a company like WOOT (which at least seems to have a ton of mindshare) would only fetch $110M. Makes you long for the days when a Photobucket or a Bebo would go for 3-8x that.
- justinweiss 16y ago"After spending a lot of time falling asleep at the library while facing the philosophy books, I determined that the concept of destiny is a construct that allows man a gentle release from facing the terror of his existence, and that a Hyundai full of twenties would pretty much offer the same benefits. And so, I ultimately said YES!" According to http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_volume_is_1_million_dollars http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_much_volume_is_1_million_dolla..., 110 million in twenties is about 220 cubic feet. According to http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/reviews/healey/2010-03-11-test-drive-review-hyundai-sonata_N.htm http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/reviews/healey/2010-03-1..., a 2011 Hyundai Sonata has about 120 cubic feet of passenger and cargo space. So, assuming TechCrunch is right, the Woot CEO is wrong. It's actually close to TWO Hyundais (Hyundai?) full of twenties. (OK, maybe one after-tax Hyundai)
- Aaronontheweb 16y ago"Several months ago, when we were all sitting on Jeff Bezos’s bumper drinking orange Mad Dog and trying not to be noticed, we heard a voice in the distance yelling "You kids better not scratch my Mercedes or I’m calling the cops!" We ran. It was later that night when Amazon came by the house and said they liked our style and also wanted to get that money we owed them for messing up the chrome. We like to think that our relationship with Amazon will continue at this level for many, many, many years to come." I just thought this deserved a special space on the HN thread.
- PanMan 16y agoThe 'official' youtube video announcing this is great as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnCHCcveteA http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnCHCcveteA One of the best corporate statements I've ever seen :)
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- sliverstorm 16y agoFingers crossed that this means one day I will be able to buy things on woot and have them shipped with Prime.
- jonknee 16y agoWoot's deal today (first after the announcement) is a Kindle for $149.99. That's a nice way to celebrate the deal.