
Yahoo lays off 1,700 and is up for sale - Shofo
http://www.vox.com/2016/2/1/10862040/yahoo-marissa-mayer-fail
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stevebmark
This is linkbait. There's only one relevant sentence:

 _> in the same press release, the chairman of Yahoo's board announced that
the board is going to "engage on qualified strategic proposals" — that is,
consider offers to sell the company._

Yahoo is not up for sale. With the alarmist linkbait title and the URL "yahoo-
marissa-mayer-fail", this is possibly a sting piece with motives other than
journalism.

I have no political ties to Yahoo (nor Vox) but this is not good reporting.

~~~
spaced_out
The title is somewhat sensationalist, but there have been articles coming out
for months, including from more respected papers like WSJ and NYT, claiming
they have info from sources inside the company that there are discussions
about selling their core businesses assets.

These were of course unsubstantiated, but now Yahoo reports another bad
quarter, a bunch of layoffs, and also says this:

>The Board also believes that exploring additional strategic alternatives, in
parallel to the execution of the management plan, is in the best interest of
our shareholders. Separating our Alibaba stake from our operating business
continues to be a primary focus, and our most direct path to value
maximization. In addition to continuing work on the reverse spin, which we've
discussed previously, we will engage on qualified strategic proposals."

That does seem like a dodgy way of asking for offers.

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dragonbonheur
My thoughts:

1\. Activist investment firms use Yakuza tactics. They buy a small share and
the company bends over backwards so the 'investors" get an extra percentage
point instead of focusing on long term strategies.

2\. If Yahoo had expanded on their Pipes and Konfabulator products and
capitalized on people's uproar after iGoogle was shut down they could have
been great competitors to Google's App Engine, Azure or Amazon Web services.
Instead they focused on making the investors an extra percentage point by
throwing the baby (great products) out with the bathwater (smart engineers
that worked hard to deliver great products).

3\. Investors and venture capitalists really don't know diddly squat (to put
it mildly) about technology these days...

~~~
forgetsusername
> _they buy a small share and the company bends over backwards so the
> 'investors" get an extra percentage point instead of focusing on long term
> strategies._

They take advantage of the rights afforded to them as owners of the company to
push for change, whether you agree with their particular view or not. That's
how corporate governance is supposed to work.

Though, not surprising that people on this board might prefer the "don't give
shareholders any rights" model of Facebook or Google.

Why do you put "investors" in scare quotes?

~~~
dragonbonheur
> Why do you put "investors" in scare quotes?

Business 101 - the Assets of a company.

Machines: anything that enable the production of deliverables and thus, value.

Materials: raw materials (obviously), applicable for traditional industries.
Solar and wind farms could qualify in the tech sector, tough.

Money: can also be shares owned, debts that others owe you, or future revenue.

Men: engineers, technicians - everyone that makes the company a business that
makes money, and everything they know, including the company's past struggles
so they don't repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

Being an investor implies that the people doing the investments have an actual
knowledge not only of the current revenue sources of a business, but also its
past history and its future potential, to be able to extract the maximum value
from its operations.

Being an investor implies that there is a minimum amount of trust in what
employees do, security in their past experiences as employees so that future
mistakes can be avoided or mitigated, and faith in their future potential.

People who see employees only as expenses or numbers to be deducted from
quarterly profits along with benefits, insurance, social security and other
normal operational costs of the operation of a company do not deserve to be
called investors for they have no plans for the future of a company and no
interest either in the work of the employees or their success.

If they see a company only as a set of numbers and only focus on their
returns, they fail to see the history, the potential and the future impact of
that company. Thus they are more like vultures picking a rotten carcass than
investors.

I'm done.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Indeed.

We really need some new words _and_ some changes to the GAAP to make the
distinction between productive investment for the future and aggressive asset
sweating for the short term very clear to everyone.

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gerbilly
I see this as propaganda to push the concept that Yahoo has negative value,
which, I'm guessing would be beneficial for some group of shareholders to
promote this view.

Personally I don't give a crap what those shareholders want.

There is more to a corporation that just shareholder value, and I don't
particularly relish thousands of people losing their jobs so some people can
make a quick buck.

~~~
mythz
> I see this as propaganda to push the concept that Yahoo has negative value

How is it propaganda?

YHOO has a current Market Cap of 27.7B with assets including a 25B stake in
Alibaba, 8B Stake in Yahoo Japan and ~4B cash. If it wasn't for tax
implications of selling their investments, Yahoo's core business clearly holds
a negative value. Accounting for tax implications puts it around 0-2B.

> There is more to a corporation that just shareholder value

Shareholders are who collectively owns a Corporation of which maximizing Share
Holder value is its primary purpose and what the board gets elected to do.

~~~
kaonashi
> Share Holder value is its primary purpose

No, it isn't. Corporations are given a public charter which declares its
purpose. Increasing share-holder value is a nice side-effect at most.

~~~
mythz
> Increasing share-holder value is a nice side-effect at most.

Rubbish, the board works for its shareholders who wants ROI on their
investment. Who do you think is forcing their expenses / 15% workforce cut?
and putting pressure on Marissa to waste her time/focus on re-structuring
Yahoo to maximize their Alibaba investment? Shareholders are the primary
benefactors.

~~~
gerbilly
> Rubbish, the board works for its shareholders who wants ROI on their
> investment.

Sure, but honestly most shareholders would prefer not to take a share of the
profits. Dividends are so passé.

Today's modern investor wants growth, and the easiest way to get growth,
without all the hard work , is to find another investor willing to believe in
your portrayal of the value of the stock you hold[1], and to convince them to
buy it from you.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_fool_theory)

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Agustus
Listening to Marissa Myer this morning talk about the company she could not
identify a core function within the company or a future.

She had a number of buzzwords laid out and did not give any idea of what they
were going for. I need her to say things like:

1\. We are working to create a cross-platform experience that outdoes Google
and Apple within their app system. The best photo sharing program across app
and web for me is Flickr and we are going to become the anti-facebook by
guaranteeing your content privacy.

2\. What is Yahoo? As it stands now, it is an amalgamation of multiple
properties that bring in revenue streams. If this is the case, then if I were
an investor, I would be trying to find a way to squeeze assets out.

~~~
vidoc
Was there a lot of purple blood in URL ?

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eatonphil
Yahoo is "focusing on its most successful products — including its search
engine". I don't understand this. Isn't their search engine just Bing?

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Shofo
Does anyone actually use their search engine? I always found it terrible the
rare time I have used it (if some dingus has it set to homepage). I know for
me the only thing that makes me stumble across Yahoo, is if I use their answer
site. Only other reason, I'd imagine, is if you used their mail. Beyond that
though there must be no way of driving traffic to Yahoo search. Seems
impossible to try upend Google's grasp, without a serious transition of
product positioning (like the DuckDuckGo position). Such a poorly managed
company. It seems Marissa is some strategist...

~~~
babuskov
It's the default for Firefox on some devices.

I wonder what this Yahoo situation means for Firefox in the long run.

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legitster
The crazy thing about Yahoo! was that they were actually in a pretty decent
position just a few years ago. Alibaba exploded, Yahoo! is still the third
most popular website in the world, and their finance and sports centers are
still incredibly popular.

I think what we've seen is a complete failure to execute on any level. Compare
that to someone like AOL who saw their brand tanking noticeably but
intelligently diversified their business model.

~~~
disposition2
> and sports centers are still incredibly popular

I only used their Fantasy Football (US) and only for 2 seasons but it was head
and shoulders above all others..including the NFL's own fantasy league.

~~~
javiramos
I agree here. They should have pushed these popular products. In particular,
they could have become a financial platform that could have rivaled
Bloomberg...

~~~
GFischer
And a sports platform to rival DraftKings and FanDuel, etc..

They also have valuable properties like Flickr, Tumblr, etc., further down the
page there are some very interesting propositions on how to make them work
better, they might be better as spinoffs.

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michaelmcdonald
Seems like a sensationalist headline designed to generate page-views. The
company has not announced it's "for sale"; instead people are reading between
the lines and coming to that as a conclusion based on corporate speak.

~~~
gtrubetskoy
It's been "for sale" since the IPO, any public company is "for sale", so it's
not like they can announce "we are for sale", it would make no sense.

But I think what the people are reading between the lines is "if you decide to
buy the majority share we will cooperate".

~~~
henrikschroder
Noone's gonna take over Yahoo by buying shares right now, since the price of
those shares is just a proxy for Alibaba.

If Yahoo gets rid of the stakes in Alibaba and Yahoo Japan, then YHOO would
properly reflect the value of core Yahoo, and someone with a few billions
lying around could gobble it up.

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chuhnk
Is it actually for sale? Everyone is saying that it's basically for sale but
the language used in the earnings call was very corporate, actually skating
over the issue completely, talking about sale on "non-strategic" assets.

~~~
Shofo
It is unofficially up for sale is what I take from the info released, i.e.
they are actively working on the sale, but not making it official. I'd say it
is due to Marissa currently trying to redevelop their internal working
structures. How can you get unmotivated staff to be passionate and transition
to new work methods if you say you are trying to dump the company.

~~~
chuhnk
Very true. There's no easy way to handle it. To be honest, I think Yahoo would
probably thrive as a private company with time to focus on long term vision as
opposed to quarterly returns.

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newscracker
It is saddening to see names like Yahoo going through so much trouble, but
there seems to be an inevitability here that many knew about for a long time.

Yahoo, after Marissa Mayer took over, also seems to have focused more on
revenue from graphical ads compared to getting any revenue directly from
users.

* Although mail may be a good product for Yahoo (as this article states), it's not really improved over time and has in fact gotten worse.

* The previous Yahoo Mail Plus, which was $20 a year for an ad-free experience with some extras (like POP email) was replaced with a who-would-even-want-this $50 a year ad-free option. Frankly, I doubt if many people even bothered to get this one, more so because among the people who started email with the likes of Hotmail and Yahoo, multiple email addresses were the norm (they continue to be so). For such users who stuck with Yahoo, there's no way to justify spending more than a hundred dollars a year for email.

* With no sign of IMAP in the paid option while Google has been giving free IMAP for years, Yahoo's offering in email was really substandard.

* Yahoo mail is still quite slow. Not the interface, but the backend. Sending a mail to oneself (by a CC when replying or emailing someone) still takes several minutes to show up in the inbox. In Gmail, this would be in the inbox in a second or two.

* Yahoo mail's spam filtering is many a times as bad as a coin toss. Emails that you mark as Not Spam for specific senders continue to go to the spam folder for subsequent mails from the same sender. Many emails that are true spam and have been marked as such don't seem to put similar mails in the spam folder.

* The vertical graphical ads on the right side, in an attempt to avoid ads from going off screen while scrolling through emails, are really annoying.

* Flickr, providing an astonishing 1TB of storage for "free" (with ads). The next paid option is $50 a year just to remove ads (double of what Flickr Pro used to cost). What???

* Any value assigned to user experience before was completely eliminated through these "more ads" move, where Yahoo was sure that almost nobody would opt for the paid options.

I wonder what would've happened if Yahoo had instead lowered the prices even
more for an ad-free option, added some useful features (like IMAP in email) in
a tiered pricing structure and made the product better (like handling email
delivery quickly). Perhaps it's too late to wonder about these though. If
Yahoo isn't bought by one of the top five tech companies, its products will
likely disappear within the next decade.

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AlexWest
Yahoo is profitable, right? Am I missing something?

~~~
henrikschroder
Yes, but it's not growing, therefore it is a complete failure and should be
wiped off the face of the Earth, according to certain investor logic.

~~~
billyhoffman
If its not growing, for from many investors, yes, that is a failure.

I have $1. I can do many things with it. Why would I give my $1 to someone in
exchange for a piece of their business if that business is not growing when I
could instead give that $1 to someone who is growing? I want my $1 to become
worth more.

Yes, yes yes, I know companies that pay dividends or profit sharing, etc.
However what's the return on those? It is higher than somewhere else?

Divorce yourself from thinking about what the company does or ever how much
money it is making. For many investors, they are looking for opportunities to
put in some money, get an asset, and then sell that asset for a profit. Growth
is key to forecasting returns and thus comparing different investment
opportunities.

~~~
st3v3r
"If its not growing, for from many investors, yes, that is a failure."

Then those investors should go invest in something else, and quit trying to
push a bunch of shortsighted crap on a company.

~~~
oldmanjay
You understand that "they" in your opinion refers to the people who own yahoo.
Why is your opinion more relevant than theirs, precisely?

~~~
st3v3r
Why is their opinion more relevant than the people that are actually running
Yahoo?

~~~
kansface
The investors (ie, the board) run Yahoo, not the other way around.

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jgalt212
Marissa Miller should be ashamed not because here tenure at Yahoo has largely
been a failure (like most of her recent predecessors), but that she has been
paid so much for accomplishing so little (like most of her recent
predecessors).

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tmaly
I should probably start moving my accounts associated with my yahoo email off
to another email.

Not sure what guarantee I would have of a new company handling my web mail
with same privacy regard.

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vidoc
Anyone has details regarding the severance package given to those that were
let go?

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mattbgates
Lays off thousands of workers... still doesn't profit.

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justaman
Yahoo was only ever a power play by Google when they sent M.M. there.

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cylinder
GOOG was happy to get rid of MM, she's a hack.

~~~
vidoc
I have no idea whether she is or isn't, I think it's irrelevant here. The key
thing is that expecting for a one person's turnaround of a 20y+/10k+
organization is a little bit like waiting for Xenu's ride to Syrius, it's
ludicrous at best. It's funny how some people always refer to how Steve Jobs
did it at Apple, without acknowledging that something like this is extremely
rare. In other words, they are always hoping/betting on an exceptional rather
than likely outcome. Interesting ..

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rdiddly
"...its most successful products — including its search engine..."

LOL!

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halis
It's Yahoo who cares...

