4 ms·
Tell HN: Yahoo Has Never Acquired A Single YC Company.
I was looking at my list of YC acquisitions earlier and noticed an interesting fact: Yahoo! has never accquired a single Y Combinator startup, either for talent or technology ( http://ycuniverse.com/ycombinator-companies.php?status=acquired ).
One interesting note about that fact is that Yahoo! was the purchaser of Viaweb back in 1999, which formed the genesis of Y Combinator itself.
Another interesting detail about Yahoo!'s lack of start-up acquisitions is that Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer has stated she may not return the cash from selling Alibaba to Yahoo! shareholders, which may signal a very positive and healthy buying spree by Yahoo! for talent and technology in the near future.
- ltcoleman 14y agoI agree that it makes perfect sense for Mayer to go on a buying spree. I am very happy that Yahoo is finally getting out of it's rut. It is pretty crazy to see Yahoo disband it's R&D and then spring this far in the other direction.
- pedalpete 14y agoI don't know that this is actually surprising. There are only 38 companies acquired. None have been acquired by Microsoft, IBM and many other large technology companies. Consider this from a founders point of view, many of these companies may have had multiple offers. If you had an offer from Yahoo! and Facebook, or Microsoft and Google, which would you be more likely to take? This is part of what Marissa Meyer is going to try to change. At the moment, Yahoo! isn't a cool place to work. Plus, if you had the option of Yahoo! or pre-IPO Facebook equity, I assume you'd go with Facebook as well. Not a lot of faith in Yahoo! (or even Microsoft to a certain extent). It is believed (not sure if it's true) that Google and Facebook are more start-up friendly.