

Silicon Valley after a Microsoft/Yahoo merger: a contrarian view - __
http://blog.pmarca.com/2008/02/silicon-valley.html

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apathy
god bless Andreesen. As someone who actually used to use Mosaic, I feel
vaguely vindicated that he is not, in fact, a dumbass.

Disney, in particular, looks to be set to go on a rampage. Internally it's
pretty clear that some dead weight needs to go, and new talent is finally
being purchased at market price -- Pixar was the top of the slope.

As far as I can tell, Yahoo would be a very expensive albatross for Microsoft.
And I'm just fine with that. Meanwhile the rest of the field remains free to
innovate and shoot for Teh Next Google status/mindshare.

~~~
far33d
Other than Club Penguin and Pixar, has Disney done any acquisitions recently?
These are the only two substantive ones I know of, but maybe there are more on
the smaller scale?

~~~
pg
They're planning more.

~~~
far33d
[http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/28/new-group-at-disney-
to-...](http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/11/28/new-group-at-disney-to-make-
consumer-internet-acquisitions/)

Ah yes. Now I remember... It will be very interesting to see where they go
with this.

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sanj
I found this line interesting:

"were tiny enough that Yahoo didn't even have to disclose the purchase prices"

What's that amount? Does anyone have a sense of how high an acquisition price
can be before it MUST be disclosed?

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rams
"the best way to get bought is to not be for sale."

Worth it's weight in gold!

The startup I worked for previously was so obsessed with making the right
noises and preparing themselves to be acquired that they forgot all about
usability, reliability and making a product that actually made a difference to
the user's work flow. And they are still waiting to be acquired 4 years after
they began.

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xirium
From the article "most startups that start with the goal of getting bought,
fail."

Hmm. Startups that aim to get bought fail before this happens. However, few
startups float. The majority are bought and the remainder stay private. So,
the best way to maximise your return is to avoid being bought, even if it is
the most likely option. That is a paradox.

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webwright
Nice to see him doing some substantive blog posts again.

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chaostheory
the only prob I have with the article is that it doesn't mention the open
source projects that yahoo provides with either developers, money, or both.

these projects are either important to starups now or will be in the near
future

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dhouston
great post. i think the point about the merger being a huge distraction for
goog/msft/yhoo is also important for startups that _cough_ might be making
competitors to things large companies might also be working on :)

