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For those that don't know what is going on, here is the backstory: Carl Icahn has recently bought a bunch of ebay stock. He has claimed the company is mismana

For those that don't know what is going on, here is the backstory: Carl Icahn has recently bought a bunch of ebay stock. He has claimed the company is mismanaged. He has also personally attacked Marc Andreesen. Here is the accusation from Ichan: 1) Marc Andreesen was/is on ebay's board. 2) While on ebay's board, Marc bought most of Skype from eBay. 3) He flipped Skype to Microsoft in less than 2 years, earning himself a multi-billion dollar profit. Carl Icahn is running Marc Andreesen name through the mud. The basic accusation is that if Marc knew Skype was so valuable as the smart phone wars were heating up, he had an obligation as a board member to give ebay better advice on the divesture. Now Marc is fighting back. This is a comic schoolboy fight among billionaires. Edit: After a bit of fact checking, it looks like A16Z only invested $50M in the skype deal. Their fund at the time was around $300M. His gain was on the order of $150 million, not billions. A16Z only had around 2% of skype, and ebay retained 35%.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
boomzilla 13y ago
I think Marc Andreessen position is weak in this fight. I have absolutely no empathy for Carl Icahn, but on this issue, he's got a good point. It seems Marc Andreessen had a conflict of interest and instead of showing that wasn't the case, Andreessen decided to attack Icahn for stuff that aren't related to this issue, even if they were definitely questionable.
- chc 13y ago
  What, Icahn can fling random accusations but Andreessen can't? It's all just mud-slinging. As for Andreessen's motive, I suppose he probably thinks Icahn is making a power play and is more interested in fending off Icahn than in defending himself in this particular instance. Icahn clearly wants Andreessen on the defensive, so it kind of makes sense, though it all feels a bit embarrassing.
  - boomzilla 13y ago
    I understand this is all mud-slinging and I think most of us agree that Icahn probably got more mud in his past (though I am sure someone will disagree). The question for Andreessen is that did he think (and could prove) that he's a more ethical businessman than Icahn (note I am not saying a better person here) Apparently not, at least in the Skype sale.
  - MartinCron 13y ago
    A mature response to mud-slinging is almost never yet more mud-slinging.
- x0x0 13y ago
  from marc's blog: * Throughout the eBay board’s process of divesting Skype, I fully disclosed my potential interest and recused myself from all deliberations on the transaction, including all discussions, negotiations, and decisions. I was uninvolved in eBay’s decision to spin off Skype and in eBay’s decision to choose to partner with the Silver Lake syndicate. * eBay’s retained ownership in the Skype spinoff was 30% vs. Andreessen Horowitz’s approximately 3%. That much larger ownership gave eBay a far bigger role in decision making on Skype after the spinoff than Andreessen Horowitz, as well as a far bigger economic payoff on the sale to Microsoft. http://blog.pmarca.com/2014/03/03/my-statement-on-ebay-director-role-and-governance/ Ebay retained 30%, so we're really arguing over 70% of the gain that didn't go to ebay. And some of it was always going to go back to the founders because Meg Whitman is a fucking moron -- she not only bought a company without buying the backing tech, but then proceeded to fuck over the founders, screwing them on over $1B, who retained ownership over the backing tech. No cause for bad blood there! Leadership! Anyway, it does seem a little sketchy, but on the other hand, marc seems to have acted well within established business practices.
  - jcampbell1 13y ago
    Also from his blog: (3) Restrictions on use of company confidential information by any director for any purpose other than that company’s benefit. I don't have any idea what the discussions happened between A16Z and Silver Lake, but it seems like tons of emails could be construed as a conflict. Even a wikipedia quote is problematic: "Through our research, we found that Skype had a core group of engineers who were completely dedicated to the mission. They stayed through the eBay acquisition and were hugely determined to make Skype the communications company of the future." Did he learn that as a board member, or from research done at a16z?
  - asharpe 13y ago
    That's the crux of it: Andreessen did the right thing. The wider question is too much of the tech landscape running through one man? All power to him: all companies want his magic, but at some stage, the web of connections will cause these issues.
xpop2027 13y ago
Reminds me of when Icahn went head to head with Bill Ackman on CNBC.
- alex_c 13y ago
  Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCZRk1lL90Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCZRk1lL90Q Well worth the listen.
  - pothibo 13y ago
    Wow. He's delusional to no end.
johnny635 13y ago
Marc Andreesen should be in jail over that Skype flip.
- Napapijri 13y ago
  Why?
- lotsofmangos 13y ago
  Would you like a biscuit?
socrates1998 13y ago
I don't get why anyone would believe anything Carl Icahn says. It blows my mind how people can be fooled by money. Icahn is professional liar and has profited greatly from his ability to fool and deceive. I don't know the whole story behind this, but Icahn calling out Andreesen for enriching himself at the expense of a company is laughable. The pot calling the kettle black. Regardless, it's too super rich guys throwing feces at each other. I have a slight inclination to believe Andreesen, but who knows, really.
- tlrobinson 13y ago
  "Icahn is professional liar and has profited greatly from his ability to fool and deceive." Even his Twitter profile bio agrees: "Me, I make money studying natural stupidity." https://twitter.com/Carl_C_Icahn https://twitter.com/Carl_C_Icahn
3327 13y ago
Carl Icahn is scum. He does serve a purpose, and scum cleans out scum every once in a while. But I believe he is a virus and a destructive force dismantling companies for personal gain. Although he is scum, if there were virus's like him, large companies would live on forever and have nothing to fear. Interesting mechanics at work.
- bwb 13y ago
  total agree!
- quanticle 13y ago
  I upvoted you, but I'm not sure I agree. If you look at people who've really disrupted industries, they don't tend to be like Carl Icahn. Increasingly, as I read up about what happened during the M&A boom of the '80s, it does seem to me that finance played an essentially destructive role during that decade and the three that have followed. I don't see very many advances that would have been impossible without the financial industry. Instead, I see an industry which has become focused on short-term profits in exchange for long-term bailouts. Carl Icahn epitomizes this trend. That's why so many people hate him.
  - barry-cotter 13y ago
    Leveraged buy outs aren't about disruption, they're about efficiency. Any company worth doing a hostile takeover of has a working business model (product market fit) and the acquirer is betting they have a lot of expenditures that are basically irrelevant to what they do to make money, or they are running at far below full utilisation on some resources or capacities, which can be cut without materially effecting anything the customer really cares about. It usually sucks to be the employee of a company that's just been LBOd because layoffs are almost certainly coming, and whether they are or not, you're going to have to do more work, probably with less resources. But for society as a whole it should be a win if competently executed; getting the same product/service out of less resources leaves the now excess resources free to be used elsewhere.
    - 13y ago
Spooky23 13y ago
I hate to agree with Ichan, but eBay is probably one of the worst run brands ever. 15 years ago, my grandparents were excited about buying and selling crap on eBay, and they know nothing about technology. Nowadays, it's a place to get ripped off. I have to say that I haven't even thought about eBay for many months.
- sisk 13y ago
  They've averaged ~13% growth year over year since 2008, doing 16 billion last year. Not sure what your metric is but I hardly think that qualifies as, "worst run brands ever."
  - fringe01 13y ago
    This astonishes me. I can't think of any good reason for this except for lack of competition. Among everyone I know almost no one ever buy stuff of ebay anymore and the only people I can think of who use it are mostly scammers.
    - woobar 13y ago
      I think it is a great place to get: 1. Cheap crap from Taiwan 2. Random appliances parts (when something breaks and all you have is a part number) without giving your credit card to some Chinese or yet another made-in-90ties warehouse website.
      - JoeAltmaier 13y ago
        So, an app that lets you buy anonymously? Brilliant! Really! Just give your payment info to one site that you trust (because its all about trust and nothing else); they buy (maybe in bulk; maybe at a price break) FOR you. What exists like this now? What market would be best served by this? Is your app in to YC yet?
    - jedrek 13y ago
      Well it's a good thing you're not an eBay stockholder. I use it probably a dozen times a year to buy hard to find stuff. Stop thinking the world is you and your friends times a billion.
factman 13y ago
Pretty unlikely when a fund invests 1/6th of its total capital in a single deal, the namesake of the fund is not intimately involved. Most funds have a cap of 10% of total equity in a single deal to avoid concentration risk and even if this was 15% for a16z, they were still above this limit. Note: since this $300MM fund, a16z has gone on to raise enormous funds many multiples of the size.
- nknighthb 13y ago
  Wrong side. He didn't claim to be uninvolved with a16z's decision, but with ebay's. He resolved the conflict by walling himself off from one side of it, not by absenting himself from the process entirely.
  - rohamg 13y ago
    couldn't you then make the argument that ebay missed out on the guidance of one of its smartest board members? (just playing devil's advocate here)
    - nknighthb 13y ago
      Category error. That's no different than being out of contact on vacation. Actually, it's better, since they were only missing his guidance on this specific subject, not anything else that came up during that time. The shareholders could simply kick him out if they felt he wasn't doing his job. Instead they re-elected him with near-unanimity. The alleged behavior in question is not that he didn't do his job, but that he committed various torts and federal crimes.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

boomzilla 13y ago

I think Marc Andreessen position is weak in this fight. I have absolutely no empathy for Carl Icahn, but on this issue, he's got a good point. It seems Marc Andreessen had a conflict of interest and instead of showing that wasn't the case, Andreessen decided to attack Icahn for stuff that aren't related to this issue, even if they were definitely questionable.

chc 13y ago
What, Icahn can fling random accusations but Andreessen can't? It's all just mud-slinging. As for Andreessen's motive, I suppose he probably thinks Icahn is making a power play and is more interested in fending off Icahn than in defending himself in this particular instance. Icahn clearly wants Andreessen on the defensive, so it kind of makes sense, though it all feels a bit embarrassing.
- boomzilla 13y ago
  I understand this is all mud-slinging and I think most of us agree that Icahn probably got more mud in his past (though I am sure someone will disagree). The question for Andreessen is that did he think (and could prove) that he's a more ethical businessman than Icahn (note I am not saying a better person here) Apparently not, at least in the Skype sale.
- MartinCron 13y ago
  A mature response to mud-slinging is almost never yet more mud-slinging.
x0x0 13y ago
from marc's blog: * Throughout the eBay board’s process of divesting Skype, I fully disclosed my potential interest and recused myself from all deliberations on the transaction, including all discussions, negotiations, and decisions. I was uninvolved in eBay’s decision to spin off Skype and in eBay’s decision to choose to partner with the Silver Lake syndicate. * eBay’s retained ownership in the Skype spinoff was 30% vs. Andreessen Horowitz’s approximately 3%. That much larger ownership gave eBay a far bigger role in decision making on Skype after the spinoff than Andreessen Horowitz, as well as a far bigger economic payoff on the sale to Microsoft. http://blog.pmarca.com/2014/03/03/my-statement-on-ebay-director-role-and-governance/ Ebay retained 30%, so we're really arguing over 70% of the gain that didn't go to ebay. And some of it was always going to go back to the founders because Meg Whitman is a fucking moron -- she not only bought a company without buying the backing tech, but then proceeded to fuck over the founders, screwing them on over $1B, who retained ownership over the backing tech. No cause for bad blood there! Leadership! Anyway, it does seem a little sketchy, but on the other hand, marc seems to have acted well within established business practices.
- jcampbell1 13y ago
  Also from his blog: (3) Restrictions on use of company confidential information by any director for any purpose other than that company’s benefit. I don't have any idea what the discussions happened between A16Z and Silver Lake, but it seems like tons of emails could be construed as a conflict. Even a wikipedia quote is problematic: "Through our research, we found that Skype had a core group of engineers who were completely dedicated to the mission. They stayed through the eBay acquisition and were hugely determined to make Skype the communications company of the future." Did he learn that as a board member, or from research done at a16z?
- asharpe 13y ago
  That's the crux of it: Andreessen did the right thing. The wider question is too much of the tech landscape running through one man? All power to him: all companies want his magic, but at some stage, the web of connections will cause these issues.

xpop2027 13y ago

Reminds me of when Icahn went head to head with Bill Ackman on CNBC.

alex_c 13y ago
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCZRk1lL90Q https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCZRk1lL90Q Well worth the listen.
- pothibo 13y ago
  Wow. He's delusional to no end.

johnny635 13y ago

Marc Andreesen should be in jail over that Skype flip.

Napapijri 13y ago
Why?
lotsofmangos 13y ago
Would you like a biscuit?

socrates1998 13y ago

I don't get why anyone would believe anything Carl Icahn says. It blows my mind how people can be fooled by money. Icahn is professional liar and has profited greatly from his ability to fool and deceive. I don't know the whole story behind this, but Icahn calling out Andreesen for enriching himself at the expense of a company is laughable. The pot calling the kettle black. Regardless, it's too super rich guys throwing feces at each other. I have a slight inclination to believe Andreesen, but who knows, really.

tlrobinson 13y ago
"Icahn is professional liar and has profited greatly from his ability to fool and deceive." Even his Twitter profile bio agrees: "Me, I make money studying natural stupidity." https://twitter.com/Carl_C_Icahn https://twitter.com/Carl_C_Icahn

3327 13y ago

Carl Icahn is scum. He does serve a purpose, and scum cleans out scum every once in a while. But I believe he is a virus and a destructive force dismantling companies for personal gain. Although he is scum, if there were virus's like him, large companies would live on forever and have nothing to fear. Interesting mechanics at work.

bwb 13y ago
total agree!
quanticle 13y ago
I upvoted you, but I'm not sure I agree. If you look at people who've really disrupted industries, they don't tend to be like Carl Icahn. Increasingly, as I read up about what happened during the M&A boom of the '80s, it does seem to me that finance played an essentially destructive role during that decade and the three that have followed. I don't see very many advances that would have been impossible without the financial industry. Instead, I see an industry which has become focused on short-term profits in exchange for long-term bailouts. Carl Icahn epitomizes this trend. That's why so many people hate him.
- barry-cotter 13y ago
  Leveraged buy outs aren't about disruption, they're about efficiency. Any company worth doing a hostile takeover of has a working business model (product market fit) and the acquirer is betting they have a lot of expenditures that are basically irrelevant to what they do to make money, or they are running at far below full utilisation on some resources or capacities, which can be cut without materially effecting anything the customer really cares about. It usually sucks to be the employee of a company that's just been LBOd because layoffs are almost certainly coming, and whether they are or not, you're going to have to do more work, probably with less resources. But for society as a whole it should be a win if competently executed; getting the same product/service out of less resources leaves the now excess resources free to be used elsewhere.
  - 13y ago

Spooky23 13y ago

I hate to agree with Ichan, but eBay is probably one of the worst run brands ever. 15 years ago, my grandparents were excited about buying and selling crap on eBay, and they know nothing about technology. Nowadays, it's a place to get ripped off. I have to say that I haven't even thought about eBay for many months.

sisk 13y ago
They've averaged ~13% growth year over year since 2008, doing 16 billion last year. Not sure what your metric is but I hardly think that qualifies as, "worst run brands ever."
- fringe01 13y ago
  This astonishes me. I can't think of any good reason for this except for lack of competition. Among everyone I know almost no one ever buy stuff of ebay anymore and the only people I can think of who use it are mostly scammers.
  - woobar 13y ago
    I think it is a great place to get: 1. Cheap crap from Taiwan 2. Random appliances parts (when something breaks and all you have is a part number) without giving your credit card to some Chinese or yet another made-in-90ties warehouse website.
    - JoeAltmaier 13y ago
      So, an app that lets you buy anonymously? Brilliant! Really! Just give your payment info to one site that you trust (because its all about trust and nothing else); they buy (maybe in bulk; maybe at a price break) FOR you. What exists like this now? What market would be best served by this? Is your app in to YC yet?
  - jedrek 13y ago
    Well it's a good thing you're not an eBay stockholder. I use it probably a dozen times a year to buy hard to find stuff. Stop thinking the world is you and your friends times a billion.

factman 13y ago

Pretty unlikely when a fund invests 1/6th of its total capital in a single deal, the namesake of the fund is not intimately involved. Most funds have a cap of 10% of total equity in a single deal to avoid concentration risk and even if this was 15% for a16z, they were still above this limit. Note: since this $300MM fund, a16z has gone on to raise enormous funds many multiples of the size.

nknighthb 13y ago
Wrong side. He didn't claim to be uninvolved with a16z's decision, but with ebay's. He resolved the conflict by walling himself off from one side of it, not by absenting himself from the process entirely.
- rohamg 13y ago
  couldn't you then make the argument that ebay missed out on the guidance of one of its smartest board members? (just playing devil's advocate here)
  - nknighthb 13y ago
    Category error. That's no different than being out of contact on vacation. Actually, it's better, since they were only missing his guidance on this specific subject, not anything else that came up during that time. The shareholders could simply kick him out if they felt he wasn't doing his job. Instead they re-elected him with near-unanimity. The alleged behavior in question is not that he didn't do his job, but that he committed various torts and federal crimes.