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Trump gives nod to Oracle buyout of TikTok in US
- erulabs 6y agoSort of hard to imagine a more ham-fisted owner for something as cool as TikTok. If IBM or GE bought them it wouldn’t make less sense.
- wombatmobile 6y agoMurdoch on MySpace: 'We Screwed Up in Every Way Possible' https://www.wired.com/2012/01/murdoch-on-myspace/ https://www.wired.com/2012/01/murdoch-on-myspace/
- dhosek 6y agoI had hoped for more there there when I looked at this article. In this case the headline is pretty much the whole of the content.
- wombatmobile 6y agoIn Act III, Revenge of the Mogul, Murdoch convinces the Australian government to draft new legislation requiring Google and Facebook to subsidise News Corporation's loss making newspapers by paying him for the clicks that send readers to his own websites. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24182494 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24182494 ACT II was when Murdoch convinced the Australian government to forgive $882 million in taxes. https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/feb/17/rupert-murdoch-receives-882m-tax-rebate https://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/feb/17/rupert-murdoch... [Edit] You might find this backstory of interest, dhosek. It's about the time a youthful Zuckerberg kicked sand in the mogul's face https://gizmodo.com/rupert-murdochs-myspace-apparently-still-haunts-mark-zu-1822924885?IR=T https://gizmodo.com/rupert-murdochs-myspace-apparently-still...
- dreen 6y agoA whole new generation will come to know the extent of Larry Ellison.
- therouwboat 6y agoWhy is tiktok cool? Or more cool than vine or imgur.
- DanBC 6y agoVine doesn't exist. Imgur has a mildly toxic community and a load of porn.
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y agoImgur has stopped allowing (new, explicit) porn: https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/articles/360029648691-Mature-Content https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/articles/360029648691-Mature...
- encom 6y agoWow. Absolutely no fun allowed.
- UncleOxidant 6y agoI think the implication of the question was why did TikTok become "cool" when vine didn't? They're essentially very similar.
- nemothekid 6y agoVine was cool - the reason it died had more to do with Twitter pretty much being in a death spiral before Trump became president. However, the biggest innovation TikTok brought was their own flavor of the algorithmic feed that made finding content a lot easier.
- DanBC 6y agoVine was cool, when it existed, and there are many vine videos which got uploaded to YouTube, and there are many Vine compilations on YT with millions of views.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- AdmiralGinge 6y agoYeah, this surprised me too. As sceptical as I am of TikTok and its "I can't believe it's not malware" approach to privacy I feel a bit sorry for the poor sods actually developing it. Oracle are going to beat the world record for deepest borehole with how hard they'll run the app into the ground.
- non-entity 6y agoCan't wait to see how they spin it as some overpriced enterprise software while it fades into irrelevancy! /s
- 9nGQluzmnq3M 6y agoI don't think you need the /s tag there, that's exactly what I expect to happen. I really don't understand what Ellison is trying to accomplish here? Aside from making more money, of course, but I'd be hard pressed to think of a less synergistic combo than Oracle's aging dinosaur enterprises and TikTok's fickle teenagers.
- JetSpiegel 6y ago> I really don't understand what Ellison is trying to accomplish here? Appeasing Trump? > Aside from making more money, of course He can push Trump to lower the price, with the force of the United States Government behind it, then flip it to Microsoft for twice the price in 3 months when Trump loses the election.
- throw_away 6y agoWait for the last minute Kodak bid (which, while improbable and bonkers, would also make at least a kind of sense)
- nick_kline 6y agoOracle is a fun choice. How about Circle-k corporation? Maybe Monsanto/Bayer or Halliburton?
- nocoder 6y agoAren't the countries banning TikTok becoming more like China by doing this? Plus Trump comments about US gov needs to get money from this sale sounds like plain bribe. I have not seen a convincing proof that TikTok is more of a national security threat versus FB or Twitter. What am I missing? I am also more suspicious because along with TikTok, Wechat was banned while other investments in US by Tencent where not touched supposedly because it would impact American companies. Wechat is definitely insignificant to be a security threat.
- historyremade 6y agoConsidering the Damage China Done to US, It's fair deal.
- kube-system 6y ago> I have not seen a convincing proof that TikTok is more of a national security threat versus FB or Twitter. Don't make the mistake of confusing national security and privacy. FB and Twitter's operations answer primarily to US law.
- 1vuio0pswjnm7 6y ago"According to those reports, Oracle was seriously considering buying TikTok's businesses in the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand with investment firms, including General Atlantic and Sequoia Capital." That's only 4 out of the "5 eyes".
- TMWNN 6y agoThe US is 10% of TikTok's user base but 50% of revenue. Most of TikTok's most-followed users are American (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-followed_TikTok_accounts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-followed_TikTok_a...). Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are probably another 5% of revenue. The UK may be not included because TikTok has stated that it wants to establish its global headquarters there. There has been talk that Microsoft is interested in buying all of TikTok worldwide (TikTok isn't available in China; ByteDance has a separate, similar business there), which would be easier technically because TikTok's operations and algorithms would not need to be divided. India was TikTok's largest userbase until the recent ban; presumably a non Chinese-owned TikTok could quickly reopen there.
- mcintyre1994 6y agoDoes TikTok actually make any revenue itself yet? I know its top users are making millions from advertising stuff, but they don't seem to have any ads in the platform itself yet?
- mprovost 6y agoYes they insert ads into your feed the same as IG or FB.
- pottertheotter 6y agoReally? I see them on FB/Instagram, but I've never seen one on TikTok.
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- StavrosK 6y agoI don't understand how the US can force a Chinese company to sell itself, can someone explain?
- Insanity 6y agoI think the forced part is because either they sell or stop being available in the US market due to the ban the US threatened with. So they're not 'forced' to per se - but if they don't sell they'll lose a large part of their market. Or am I wrong? [edit for clarity]
- StavrosK 6y agoThat makes sense, thanks.
- TheTruth321 6y agoa.k.a. "being forced to sell" :)
- TMWNN 6y ago>So they're not 'forced' to per se - but if they don't sell they'll lose a large part of their market. Or am I wrong? Correct. The US is 10% of TikTok's user base, but accounts for 50% of revenue. Further, most of TikTok's most popular users are American (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-followed_TikTok_accounts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-followed_TikTok_a...).
- waihtis 6y agoThe equation is a bit similar to the one played out in the movie "Goodfellas". You have two mobsters, the good mobster and the bad mobster, and a business. The bad mobster actively harasses the business in multiple ways, prompting the business to seek protection from the good mobster in exchange for buying into the business. Of course, both the good mobster and the bad mobster are in the same mob, and benefit from the revenue stream from the newly acquired stake in business.
- 6y ago
- knolax 6y agoTikTok should just let the US government ban them. Teenagers can figure out how to VPN to Mexico and it's better PR for TikTok. "So good the government won't let you use it" is better optics than "TikTok, now owned by some Boomer company". As a hip youngster myself, just the name Oracle makes me think of beige and grey Windows Vista era software and shitty enterprise software.
- the-dude 6y agoUpvoted for the perspective. Totally unrealistic view the average consumer is going to use a VPN to reach a particular service though. The average consumer does not care(TM) and chooses convenience. And convenience will be brought by FB for example.
- knolax 6y agoMost teenagers already use VPNs to get past network filters used in school WiFis and child filters on their data plans. Plus pornhub operates their own VPN so we know using a VPN to access just one service is something people already do. I think this idea of a mindless consumer is an unhealthy attitude tech people have that leads to so much shitty software. People who don't browse HN can use computers too.
- the-dude 6y agoI agree some might use VPNs, but most seems like a claim which needs some evidence.
- kalleboo 6y agoThe problem is that with a transaction ban, no US companies can buy ads on TikTok, removing any financial point in running the service for US customers
- smallchungus 6y agoSo be it?
- the_duke 6y agoApart from all the political discussions, I have no idea how the buyer is supposed to buy out just some regional markets. Would development still be done by the original company, and the new owner just operates regional data centers? But without inter-connectivity? Without being able to influence development, or offer access to the developers for debugging and ops? Seems exceedingly unlikely. Otherwise, do they get a code dump of a huge, complex code base, and are supposed to continue development on their own? With the original TikTok still operating in other parts of the world, and slowly diverging? I can't see that happening either. Would they buy the brand name too, and the rest of the world would start using a different name? That all seems pointless. The only thing that makes sense to me is taking over globally.
- ferros 6y agoYes all of this, how does a regional split work?
- weego 6y agoAffiliate revshare? Doesn't really fit but the idea is baffling to me anyway
- CM30 6y agoThat's a good point. It's going to be a lot more complex to sell just TikTok's US operations than the whoe company, for all the reasons mentioned. Still, I guess there is a positive to all this complexity. It's a perfect test case for what splitting up Google/Facebook/Apple/Microsoft/whatever would be like, assuming an antitrust cause goes ahead. You'd likely have many of the same issues there, so this could be a chance to see how things might play out in such a situation...
- vasco 6y agoThey're literally different apps with different names, user bases that don't interact with each other.
- kube-system 6y ago
- xyst 6y agoOne Rich Asshole Called Larry Ellison Among the many reasons I still turn down any Oracle offer is because of their CEO.
- jcadam 6y agoEveryone has a number. I wouldn't want to work for Oracle either. However, if they came to me with an offer that was several multiples of my current salary, I'm not sure I could turn it down :)
- almost_usual 6y agoSo you also refuse to own a Tesla?
- VoxPelli 6y agoAs a Swede it feels so weird to read about eg. Trump meddling in such details in affairs like this. In Sweden ministerial rule is outlawed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministerial_governance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ministerial_governance Our prime minister would not be allowed to have an opinion on any specific case like this, he would rather have to have opinions on the overall legal framework or such instead and leave the interpretation and application of the legal framework to the appropriate agencies. To me that feels like the right way to go about things like this.
- donavanm 6y agoI believe youre seeing an artifact of how governance is divided. It looks like sweden (and many other parliamentary systems) puts the administration & execution of law under the direction of a minister, who’s primarily a legislator. In the USA these areas are more clearly divided. The federal legislature is comprised of a bicameral house and senate. There is a discrete executive branch charged with enforcing the law set by the legislature. The president is the head of that executive branch who enforces those laws. Thats where the aspect of specific enforcement by the president comes in.
- 1DRACOSEA8 6y agoRight, because the Supreme Court didn’t ever rule against the Lincoln administration regarding the acknowledgement of a negro as a human and a citizen, which led your principled example, this dream of a divided government; when the current senate conspired with the executive to avoid jail. That’s collusion with the criminal.Back to Lincoln, he didn’t sit there and take the decision regarding the freedom of a slave released in one state, the rights of that black individual — disregarded as a human; To roam freely in every state and abolish the practice of indentured servitude, you could say Lincoln saw the writing on the wall. Just him running for office and winning big, in California, was a declaration of war on its own country to reestablish federated supremacy. The system broken a war fixed it.
- VoxPelli 6y agoThat separation exists in Sweden as well. The parliament makes the laws while the government is the executive branch. But yeah, slightly different as its our prime minister who sets up the government, the parliament who picks the prime minister and the people who elects the parliament – through proportional representation. The ban on ministerial rule is an additional separation on top of the one you mention – a separation within the executive branch, that even further avoids opportunities for eg. corruption. (And confuses foreign leaders who are unfamiliar with it)
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- hestefisk 6y agoSomehow it doesn’t surprise me Larry is a Trump supporter.
- gentleman11 6y agoYou used to hear a lot about this sort of concern in countries like Mexico etc, and would be slightly relieved that it was so much less common where you lived. Responsible first world governments are supposed to be neutral
- Der_Einzige 6y agoLarry is a Trump supporter because he can make money through pay-for-play agreements with Trump and the administration. Oracle is not going to enjoy the long term effects of Trumps immigration policies, and once it hits Larry where it hurts (his pocketbook) he will suddenly support the DNC again...
- JetSpiegel 6y agoThis assumes Oracle employs software engineers. Only as a legacy positions grandfathered in.
- almost_usual 6y agoWould it surprise you he’s also a Tesla board member?
- elkos 6y agoI guess he isn't the only Trump supporter in that hoard
- kohlerm 6y agoHow would fit TikTok into Oracles portfolio?
- OldHand2018 6y agoAs a use-case demonstration for Oracle Cloud?
- Traster 6y agoWhat happened to Microsoft? Surely if the US really wanted a fast sale then turning it into a bidding war is a stupid move?
- greatpatton 6y agoThe huge hypocrisies here is that the sell must be done to a US company, not a European or an Indian one for instance but specifically a US one. I think that's a good lesson for the rest of the world, and a big warning. Btw I think that following this and the Huawei little war, Apple is about to suffer from it. It's very probable that the Apple store will be forbidden in China. This will destroy Apple in China (impacting 18% Apple revenue), and it will at the same time preserve the image of China as the factory of the world. This is just the beginning of a long war.
- dontblink 6y agoExpect an escalation if that happens and more bans on Chinese companies.
- nine_zeros 6y agoExactly this. The ban itself was fine. But to force sale of assets to a US company (which reduces bidding prices significantly) is just corrupt thuggish politics. At this point, a third country should be wary of doing any business in the US.
- sitkack 6y agoWeakening the dollar makes our exports look more attractive and encourages more spending at home.
- nine_zeros 6y ago> Weakening the dollar makes our exports look more attractive and encourages more spending at home. How is this relevant to app bans and mafia sales?
- sildur 6y agoI took that as a big warning message, and started to reduce my US exposure as much as I can. I was already going self hosted so it’s easier for me. The only new requirement is avoiding American companies as much as possible.
- Mindwipe 6y agoTikTok feels a completely bizarre purchase for Oracle. Especially when abandoning the UK market. They have no synergy, no experience, no moderation infrastructure, nothing. Do they want to be Yahoo? Literally the only justification I can think of is that they want to keep the current administration happy and see this as a quasi-bribe, in the hope of getting more work in future from them in things they actually do. But that seems crazy given the likelihood (on the basis of polling, not making any judgements on whys or wherefores) that the administration will be gone in three months.
- swiley 6y agoI can’t be alone in being more creeped out by Oracle than bytedance. So we’re giving a pathological collector of software control over a huge group of easily manipulated teenagers? Yikes!
- lovehashbrowns 6y agoDoes anyone know if tiktok has any patents or potential patents that oracle can leverage? That's even more scary to me.
- mothsonasloth 6y agoThis will be hilarious if it happens. TikTok is terrible, Oracle is terrible. At least it will increase the statistic on "3 Billion Devices Run Oracle Java"
- mdtancsa 6y ago... When I think "youth market monetization", no one knows "the kids" like Oracle does....Its fresh.
- jrott 6y agoyeah this one makes no sense at all. Enterprise sales and massive legal departments to appeal to the kids.
- michaelt 6y agoJust think of all the strengths Oracle brings to the table: * They're not currently under scrutiny for antitrust after having brought too many competing social networks. * Absolutely no need to clean house if they find TikTok's success relies on a bunch of shady stuff, Oracle is cool with whatever makes money. * Um.... * That's it.
- djohnston 6y agothis made me lol, well done
- wuliwong 6y agoAs an ex-Oracle engineer, I can attest to the accuracy of this statement.
- csours 6y agoOops, it looks like you weren't licensed to disparage Oracle. We can settle this now for $100,000. Sorry for your confusion on our incredibly clear terms and conditions which change so rarely and are easy to find. (SARCASM)
- aliswe 6y agoWell put!
- simonebrunozzi 6y agoI am missing a reference here. Can you expand?
- bsharitt 6y agoThis doesn't make any sense, there's no Ask.com toolbar for Oracle to bundle on phones.
- dathinab 6y agoI heard Oracle is deep into really shitty kinds of user tracking/spying. So I think they hope to get two things out of it: - Good PR with the next generation (they lost most/all? good PR with my generation as far as I can tell). - A lot of data about young users.
- brtt 6y agoWell considering they completely butchered their GDPR compliance to leverage said data overseas w.r.t digital audiences (they just had to pull out) I'd guess they would like the idea of more activity data, but don't have much confidence they'll get much value from it.
- encom 6y ago>I heard Oracle is deep into really shitty kinds of user tracking/spying. Absolutely not defending Oracle, but who isn't into shitty user tracking and spying? It's a central part of most business models, because they give the service away for free.
- dathinab 6y agoI mean like more bad then what you normally get. Like using gray legal area devices to track you in the real world even if you never signed any agb. Like tracking Bluetooth IDs in and around shopping center, like tracking the anti theft/processing pipeline RFID ships which might still be left in your closes, like adding spyware to apps which listens to ultrasonic sound bakons in the background and then phones home. Like using face recognition on security cameras in shops but potentially also in the streets around them. I.e. all the kinds a questionable tracking which many people aren't aware of at all (as far as I can tell). And Oracle seems to be big into bringing all this tracking sources and data from Google/Facebook/etc. and data they can get from other sources (e.g. finance institutes) together and automatically analyze it to create profiles about everyone. Through only as far as I remember, it's a while back that I read about that. I somewhat hope that I'm misremembering tbh. Would be a nicer world.
- qalmakka 6y agoAmong all the feasible buyers, Oracle feels like the worst possible one. They are basically the real life version of Mr. Robot's Evil Corp, and they have a very bad record when it comes to acquisitions.
- seattle_spring 6y ago> they have a very bad record when it comes to acquisitions. They bought and killed ATG, which is a net win in my book.
- MrBuddyCasino 6y agoYes. I hope they acquire TikTok.
- jacquesm 6y agoHehe. Agreed. In fact I have a list of companies that I would like Oracle to acquire.
- majewsky 6y agoIs Oracle on that list?
- kube-system 6y agoORA-01476 divisor is equal to zero
- jacquesm 6y agoThere is a Rust linked list joke in here somewhere but I'm stuck in a loop so I can't find it.
- boring_twenties 6y agoIt would be only honorable thing for Oracle to do.
- PedroBatista 6y agoThis looks like yet another Petrodollar merry-go-round look-alike. US TikTok is the price to pay for that sweet long term government contracts.
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- gruez 6y agoFirst it was getting Kodak to manufacture pharmaceutical chemicals. Now it's getting Oracle to buy tiktok. Is there a reason behind these baffling choices by the current administration? Why are they giving sweetheart deals to dinosaur companies? Is there some insider trading angle? Did those companies have better lobbyists?
- notatoad 6y ago>Is there some insider trading angle? for kodak, the answer is a very blatant yes. for oracle, it might be as simple as Larry Ellison is a Trump donor.
- liability 6y agoI don't mean this as a joke but it will probably sound like one: Maybe Trump wants to punish TikTok and their users by having the second most unlikeable man in America run it.
- asdfthvaa2 6y agoAt least some people actually like Trump. Is there anyone who even likes Mr Oracle?
- nightski 6y agoI mean I read the article and Trump simply said they'd be a good buyer. There is nothing about "sweetheart deals" or any actual facilitation of the deal whatsoever.
- gentleman11 6y agoPublic corporations are inherently immoral manipulators. We shouldn’t trust any of them with massive access to the nations “youth.” At least private companies have a chance of maybe having a founder with a heart who will turn down a sketchy way to make money
- boxingdog 6y agoyeah, give it to oracle, the king of making great ui /s
- Taylor_OD 6y agoCan someone explain this potential acquisition for me? I cant think of a company more unlikely to acquire TikTok than Oracle. What business need could they fill for Oracle? Is this an effort to get into social media/massive data collection in a big way? Have they tried to acquire other social apps in the past? I just don't get it.
- pmontra 6y agoIf the President of the USA told a US gas company to buy TikTok they would buy TikTok. That's the business need.
- XaspR8d 6y agoUp next: DuPont acquires Discord, ExxonMobil acquires Bumble, McKesson acquires Niantic/Pokemon Go...
- sg47 6y agoTiktok will be made to run on Oracle Cloud and Oracle can point to that to grow their Cloud business.
- ivolimmen 6y agoOracle : "it seems you have installed TikTok. Pay up or we will sue".
- yalogin 6y agoThis is shrewd of Ellison to do this. He knows he is the edge as he is a trump supporter. However it’s a terrible idea for tiktok to sell to oracle, a dinosaur that has no idea how to deal with consumer tech. I still don’t know why these companies want tiktok in the first place. It will be a nightmare to disconnect them from China and even then all the Chinese employees who dreamed up the tech are not coming, what’s the point? Also I suspect this is just election pandering from trump. Initially he gave a 45 day “chance” for companies to find a buyer and then extended it by another 45 days. That takes it close to the election or past that date. At that point he doesn’t care and can push it under the rug just like the other “harsh stances “ against China.
- throwaway554323 6y agoIn that case, this might be the perfect deal for TikTok as Americans will use a VPN to access better content and apps.
- throwaway5752 6y agoThis really isn't that shrewd. The outcomes are either 1) to drive up MSFT's TikTok acquisition price 2) to disrupt the sale process and harm or destroy TikTok 3) to ingratiate themselves with the current president or 4) the gambit is sincere and they successfully acquire them. None of those address Oracle's core challenges which that they are getting hollowed out by competition in their core database market, are being outcompeted by Workday and SFDC in CRM and ERP verticals, and one just has to look at the comments here to see how they are perceived in the market. This may be temporarily gratifying, but is ultimate a distraction for them when they should not be distracting themselves.
- ivanstojic 6y agoWhen I was working in Oracle, there was a running gag that there were more full time attorneys employed by the company, than there were engineers. Maybe that is what you need to run a business like that?
- bitwize 6y agoGood. They deserve each other.
- soapdog 6y agoMany here don't get the big picture. This acquisition makes total sense for Oracle. They'll be able to milk those influencers by charging TikTokers by how many cores they have on their phones and video audience size. </s>
- nick_kline 6y agoOracle's obviously going to pivot to video.
- AzzieElbab 6y ago.. and sue every one of them if the number of cores gets misreported somehow
- KnobbleMcKnees 6y agoAnd here I was thinking that they'd immediately shelve it, and then spend their time litigating against influencers and copycat platforms.
- fomine3 6y agoI hope they provide core count factor for little cores like SPARC T1
- ReplicaGrove 6y agoOracle or their data collection subsidiary BlueKai? Strongly surprised no one mentioning them. Sounds like a perfect fit!
- spcebar 6y agoThe world has turned into a parody of itself.
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- nonamenoslogan 6y agoSo soon enough, we'll see the TikTok logo on the back of a Facebook sign? Sniff...
- tibbydudeza 6y agoByteDance and their investors are going to get a nice cash infusion on their way to world domination outside the US and Oracle will promptly kill it like they did Sun. US Zoomers will move to the next big thing.
- suyash 6y agoGreat news, can't wait for Oracle to buy TikTok!
- floatinglotus 6y agoIn my wildest dreams I could not create a stupider headline. I guess the idea here is that Oracle destroys everything they buy, Trump hates Sarah Cooper, so he approves of this deal.
- aussiegreenie 6y agoOf all the reasons not to use TikTok Oracles proposed ownership has to very high in the list. All the kewl kids use Oracle.....
- Just1689 6y agoAll Tik-Tok ers will now receive pre-sales training for Oracle Cloud