4 ms·

Yahoo SEC filing on Viaweb purchase (including Viaweb financials)

57 points by byrneseyeview 18y ago

fallentimes 18y ago
Glory days. Yahoo Net Loss (in thousands): $ (22,887) Viaweb Net Loss (in thousands): $ (1,747)
- Dauntless 18y ago
  Edit: Sorry I didn't understood at first. Anyway, Yahoo has a $1.03 Billion Net Income now... http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=YHOO http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=YHOO .
prakash 18y ago
good find. The only SEC document that was a pleasure to read was the Google S1. Lets see how this one is.
- byrneseyeview 18y ago
  It's not fun at all. I recommend it only for the incurably curious. The only interesting part is how fast Viaweb was growing -- for all of 1997, they had $343K in revenue; for the first quarter of 1998, it was $290K. You don't have to extrapolate that too far to see a great deal for Yahoo.
  - nostrademons 18y ago
    The other interesting thing was their balance sheet vs. cash flow statement. For the first quarter 98, they had $106K in cash. In the same period, they burned $200K on operating activities, and only avoided bankruptcy ($14K at the beginning of the quarter!) with a $300K cash infusion from investors. They would've been dead in another month and a half. Talk about playing chicken!
    - byrneseyeview 18y ago
      I think PG has mentioned this in an essay (and in the Founders at Work interview). They were running out of cash during the Yahoo negotiations. Edit: "It was really close, too. When we were visiting Yahoo to talk about being acquired, we had to interrupt everything and borrow one of their conference rooms to talk down an investor who was about to back out of a new funding round we needed to stay alive. So even in the middle of getting rich we were fighting off the grim reaper." http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html
    - pg 18y ago
      It wasn't quite that close. I think we may have had a line of credit we could draw on.
      - akkartik 18y ago
        Did Viaweb have employees by the end?
        pg 18y ago
        Yes, around 20.
        furiouslol 18y ago
        So at what point of time do you and your cofounder stop developing Viaweb yourself and delegate it to your employees?
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
andreyf 18y ago
I wonder if this is being upvoted because of a subconscious need to heal egos after the "YC is Cult" post - a comforting sense of "oh, right, there is a reason why we love PG/YC/HN". (or did I just overthink that?)
run4yourlives 18y ago
Good Lord. If anything, having YC people there to walk you through that debacle is worth the price of admission alone. Paul, how much of that document did you actually understand when you signed it, and how much was blind faith in your lawyers? (Serious question actually)
- pg 18y ago
  I consider deal documents to be object code, and my lawyers' explanation of what's in them to be source code. I inspect the source code fairly carefully, but I do generally have blind faith in the compiler, in the sense that I don't read the documents myself to see if the lawyers' interpretation of them is correct. From what I've seen, I'd guess this level of understanding of deal documents is the norm.
  - run4yourlives 18y ago
    Thanks for the answer. I'm glad it's the norm, because to be honest, being on this site, more often than not I feel pretty stupid. It's nice to know that even those experienced in business deals don't understand all the legalese. The fact that I can somewhat read them doesn't make me feel so dumb!
  - chris_l 18y ago
    Do they give you written explanations then?
    - pg 18y ago
      Sometimes, by email, but more often you talk to them on the phone.
  - ph0rque 18y ago
    > I consider deal documents to be object code, and my lawyers' explanation of what's in them to be source code. PG, whenever you're ready to open-source some of the startup documents you've talked about, I hope you include this sort of "source-code" along with the "compiled" version.
dcurtis 18y ago
Interestingly, the number of shares given outright for Viaweb (393,591), not including options, would be worth only $7,915,115 today. edit: (not taking into account splits) Considering the four splits since the end of 1998, the total number of shares would be 6,297,456 (393,591 * 2 * 2 * 2 * 2) equivalent to $126,578,866 at a price of 20.10 (as of 2:04pm edt today). From June of 1998 to the height of Yahoo's stock in December 1999, two splits had occurred making the total number of Viaweb shares 1,574,364. With a 108.17 price per share, Viaweb's shares were potentially worth a total of $170,298,954. (Assuming they only held on to the 68,210 escrow shares, that still amounts to 272,840 shares after splits and a total of $29,513,102.80 on the day the escrow period ended.) Uh, wow. (This is assuming the numbers I am getting from Yahoo Finance are not corrected for splits, and I think they are.)
- run4yourlives 18y ago
  only... (!)
  - dcurtis 18y ago
    At Yahoo's height, December 24th, 1999 (hilariously, almost the exact date the options were released from escrow after Viaweb's purchase), the share price was 101.81, which would have made the 393,591 shares worth about $40,071,499. That's more than a 500% increase over today's value, representing 32 million dollars which could buy at least fifty Lamborghinis or seven million Caramel Frappuccinos.
    - run4yourlives 18y ago
      Oh, I know. It's just not often you hear $8M used with that qualifier!
    - zitterbewegung 18y ago
      Using the splits that Yahoo has had and its current stock price 1,574,364 shares is worth $31 723 434.6
- pg 18y ago
deleted 18y ago
[deleted]
chris_l 18y ago
Is someone in stalker mode today?

57 points by byrneseyeview 18y ago

fallentimes 18y ago

Glory days. Yahoo Net Loss (in thousands): $ (22,887) Viaweb Net Loss (in thousands): $ (1,747)

Dauntless 18y ago
Edit: Sorry I didn't understood at first. Anyway, Yahoo has a $1.03 Billion Net Income now... http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=YHOO http://finance.yahoo.com/q/ks?s=YHOO .

prakash 18y ago

good find. The only SEC document that was a pleasure to read was the Google S1. Lets see how this one is.

byrneseyeview 18y ago
It's not fun at all. I recommend it only for the incurably curious. The only interesting part is how fast Viaweb was growing -- for all of 1997, they had $343K in revenue; for the first quarter of 1998, it was $290K. You don't have to extrapolate that too far to see a great deal for Yahoo.
- nostrademons 18y ago
  The other interesting thing was their balance sheet vs. cash flow statement. For the first quarter 98, they had $106K in cash. In the same period, they burned $200K on operating activities, and only avoided bankruptcy ($14K at the beginning of the quarter!) with a $300K cash infusion from investors. They would've been dead in another month and a half. Talk about playing chicken!
  - byrneseyeview 18y ago
    I think PG has mentioned this in an essay (and in the Founders at Work interview). They were running out of cash during the Yahoo negotiations. Edit: "It was really close, too. When we were visiting Yahoo to talk about being acquired, we had to interrupt everything and borrow one of their conference rooms to talk down an investor who was about to back out of a new funding round we needed to stay alive. So even in the middle of getting rich we were fighting off the grim reaper." http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html http://www.paulgraham.com/die.html
  - pg 18y ago
    It wasn't quite that close. I think we may have had a line of credit we could draw on.
    - akkartik 18y ago
      Did Viaweb have employees by the end?
      - pg 18y ago
        Yes, around 20.
        furiouslol 18y ago
        So at what point of time do you and your cofounder stop developing Viaweb yourself and delegate it to your employees?

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

andreyf 18y ago

I wonder if this is being upvoted because of a subconscious need to heal egos after the "YC is Cult" post - a comforting sense of "oh, right, there is a reason why we love PG/YC/HN". (or did I just overthink that?)

run4yourlives 18y ago

Good Lord. If anything, having YC people there to walk you through that debacle is worth the price of admission alone. Paul, how much of that document did you actually understand when you signed it, and how much was blind faith in your lawyers? (Serious question actually)

pg 18y ago
I consider deal documents to be object code, and my lawyers' explanation of what's in them to be source code. I inspect the source code fairly carefully, but I do generally have blind faith in the compiler, in the sense that I don't read the documents myself to see if the lawyers' interpretation of them is correct. From what I've seen, I'd guess this level of understanding of deal documents is the norm.
- run4yourlives 18y ago
  Thanks for the answer. I'm glad it's the norm, because to be honest, being on this site, more often than not I feel pretty stupid. It's nice to know that even those experienced in business deals don't understand all the legalese. The fact that I can somewhat read them doesn't make me feel so dumb!
- chris_l 18y ago
  Do they give you written explanations then?
  - pg 18y ago
    Sometimes, by email, but more often you talk to them on the phone.
- ph0rque 18y ago
  > I consider deal documents to be object code, and my lawyers' explanation of what's in them to be source code. PG, whenever you're ready to open-source some of the startup documents you've talked about, I hope you include this sort of "source-code" along with the "compiled" version.

dcurtis 18y ago

Interestingly, the number of shares given outright for Viaweb (393,591), not including options, would be worth only $7,915,115 today. edit: (not taking into account splits) Considering the four splits since the end of 1998, the total number of shares would be 6,297,456 (393,591 * 2 * 2 * 2 * 2) equivalent to $126,578,866 at a price of 20.10 (as of 2:04pm edt today). From June of 1998 to the height of Yahoo's stock in December 1999, two splits had occurred making the total number of Viaweb shares 1,574,364. With a 108.17 price per share, Viaweb's shares were potentially worth a total of $170,298,954. (Assuming they only held on to the 68,210 escrow shares, that still amounts to 272,840 shares after splits and a total of $29,513,102.80 on the day the escrow period ended.) Uh, wow. (This is assuming the numbers I am getting from Yahoo Finance are not corrected for splits, and I think they are.)

run4yourlives 18y ago
only... (!)
- dcurtis 18y ago
  At Yahoo's height, December 24th, 1999 (hilariously, almost the exact date the options were released from escrow after Viaweb's purchase), the share price was 101.81, which would have made the 393,591 shares worth about $40,071,499. That's more than a 500% increase over today's value, representing 32 million dollars which could buy at least fifty Lamborghinis or seven million Caramel Frappuccinos.
  - run4yourlives 18y ago
    Oh, I know. It's just not often you hear $8M used with that qualifier!
  - zitterbewegung 18y ago
    Using the splits that Yahoo has had and its current stock price 1,574,364 shares is worth $31 723 434.6
pg 18y ago

deleted 18y ago

[deleted]

chris_l 18y ago

Is someone in stalker mode today?