4 ms·

An opportunity for me to not hijack the conversation! You brought up for-profit boards! OK, a pet peeve. They don't seem to suffer any consequences, and yet th

An opportunity for me to not hijack the conversation! You brought up for-profit boards! OK, a pet peeve. They don't seem to suffer any consequences, and yet they really should. Let's look at Yahoo [1]. This is not just a story of Yahoo losing a technology race. It's a story of an incompetent board. The race was already over in 2008: > Yahoo had a chance to sell for $44.6 billion in early 2008, when Microsoft made an unsolicited offer. They turned it down. 8 years later: > Today, Verizon said it is buying Yahoo’s core businesses for $4.83 billion. So, instead of taking 44 billion when it was offered, they ran it down to less than 5. [1] https://qz.com/741056/the-stunning-collapse-of-yahoos-valuation/ https://qz.com/741056/the-stunning-collapse-of-yahoos-valuat...

toast0 4y ago
Comparing Microsoft's offer to Verizon's is a smidge unfair, because Verizon didn't buy the whole shebang. I'm having trouble figuring out the numbers, but the Yahoo Japan and Alibaba holdings were worth several billion and proceeds from their sales were distributed to shareholders. Of course, I'm personally sad Microsoft didn't buy Yahoo, because I was sure I'd get a free Xbox if they did. OTOH, I think Microsoft would have been a poor host for Yahoo, and there were a few more good years left. Of course, the Microsoft searh deal went rather poorly. I left in October 2011, for many reasons, but not selling out to Microsoft wasn't one.
- UIUC_06 4y ago
  OK, good point. I recall that their stock holdings were worth quite a bit. Still, $44B!
formerkrogemp 4y ago
> If a for profit compaby goes belly up, do the board members suffer any real consequences, apart from perhaps not being invited into other boards? Funniest shit I've heard all week. Once you get above a certain level (C-suite or board level), you only get in trouble in very specific circumstances. Most of the time on for profit boards you get paid to sit on your ass and meet in emergencies or annually or quarterly.
Cupertino95014 4y ago
Another example, harder to pin down, is Hewlett-Packard from pre-Fiorina on. Since they're now three different companies, it would be an exercise to compute valuations (anyone?), but for me the real loss is the HP culture, or "the HP Way" if you will. HP used to be a proud, if boring, company, the flagship of the Valley. Their people were great to work with. They were ethical. You could spend your whole career there and many people did. Then they had Fiorina, the diva and drama queen, and then Mark Hurd and more mergers and would-be mergers than you can shake a stick at. There was a public shareholders' meeting at Flint Center because interest was so high. Where was the Board in all this?

toast0 4y ago

Comparing Microsoft's offer to Verizon's is a smidge unfair, because Verizon didn't buy the whole shebang. I'm having trouble figuring out the numbers, but the Yahoo Japan and Alibaba holdings were worth several billion and proceeds from their sales were distributed to shareholders. Of course, I'm personally sad Microsoft didn't buy Yahoo, because I was sure I'd get a free Xbox if they did. OTOH, I think Microsoft would have been a poor host for Yahoo, and there were a few more good years left. Of course, the Microsoft searh deal went rather poorly. I left in October 2011, for many reasons, but not selling out to Microsoft wasn't one.

UIUC_06 4y ago
OK, good point. I recall that their stock holdings were worth quite a bit. Still, $44B!

formerkrogemp 4y ago

> If a for profit compaby goes belly up, do the board members suffer any real consequences, apart from perhaps not being invited into other boards? Funniest shit I've heard all week. Once you get above a certain level (C-suite or board level), you only get in trouble in very specific circumstances. Most of the time on for profit boards you get paid to sit on your ass and meet in emergencies or annually or quarterly.

Cupertino95014 4y ago

Another example, harder to pin down, is Hewlett-Packard from pre-Fiorina on. Since they're now three different companies, it would be an exercise to compute valuations (anyone?), but for me the real loss is the HP culture, or "the HP Way" if you will. HP used to be a proud, if boring, company, the flagship of the Valley. Their people were great to work with. They were ethical. You could spend your whole career there and many people did. Then they had Fiorina, the diva and drama queen, and then Mark Hurd and more mergers and would-be mergers than you can shake a stick at. There was a public shareholders' meeting at Flint Center because interest was so high. Where was the Board in all this?