

What If...: How Yahoo Almost Bought DoubleClick Before Google - krishnakrishna
http://www.betabeat.com/2011/08/11/what-if-yahoo-bought-doubleclick-before-google/

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mtogo
So is doubleclick a company people look up to? I associate them with skeezy
business practices, tracking people, privacy issues, and crappy advertising.
I'm seriously trying to come up with one reason to like them.

Maybe it's that they're successful? But so is monsanto, and i don't look up to
them.

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klbarry
Truthfully, I think the problems with Monsanto are more hype than real. They
deal with the most important issues in the world, almost - making food
available.

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bdhe
This is a little off topic but I have to rebut your argument. There's plenty
of information and sources cited in this article [1,2,3] and I can't
understand the sentiment that the problems with Monsanto are more hype than
real. Also, a company dealing with the most important issue in the world
doesn't absolve it of wrong-doing (be it illegal or immoral) and nor should it
weaken standards that we may apply to others solving "less important issues".
Both the _means_ and the _ends_ are important.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#Environmental_and_heal...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#Environmental_and_health_record)

[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#Related_legal_actions>

[3] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monsanto#Criticism>

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bproper
It was 1995 and Kevin O’Connor was sitting in a basement in suburban Atlanta
with Dwight Merriman trying to figure out how to build a business on this new
thing called the internet.

“We thought maybe car sales would be big. We figured porn would be huge, but
we didn’t want to get into that.” says Mr. O’Connor, who along with Dwight
Merriman and Kevin Ryan, would go on to build the DoubleClick, Silicon Alley’s
biggest exit and the engine behind Google’s profits. "Eventually we settled on
ad sales."

What If these guys had decided to work on porn...

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pedalpete
The title completely misses the point that it isn't what you buy, but what you
do with it. Another proof that execution is the key.

If Yahoo had bought DoubleClick, they likely would not have come up with
AdWords, which is where the big money is for Google. On top of that, Yahoo's
search technology wasn't as good as google, so people would have still left
Yahoo for google.

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slee029
I completely agree about the execution aspect. At another level to me the
value of acquisitions comes from understanding how you will increase the value
of the product. At the consumer product level look at what P&G did with
Swiffer. They knew with their marketing and distribution they saw a little
diamond in the rough.

I'm guessing the opportunity the people within Google saw at the time they
were competing for acquisitions was the same thing. Maybe one saw a diamond in
the rough while others saw the diamond as being complete and thus those
differing perspectives led to different executions post-acquisition.

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presty
"and the engine behind Google’s profits"

uh? how so?

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bproper
Google's display ad exchange profits, powered by DoubleClick, have been
growing.

Display ads is exactly where Yahoo wants to be strong, and is weak.

[http://www.bigmouthmedia.com/live/articles/no-second-
thought...](http://www.bigmouthmedia.com/live/articles/no-second-thoughts-on-
doubleclick-google-reports-.asp/7562/)

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americandesi333
I don't see how they are mentioning a possibility of 'What if'. This article
seems a little misleading. Its clear from reading this that the founders did
not want to sell themselves to Yahoo. Also, hindsight is always 20/20 :)

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rtrunck
Yahoo would have shut them down a few years later anyway

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zengr
Google would have created DoubleClick+

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samstave
It sure seems to be that whomever was in charge of M&A decisions/negotians at
Yahoo was an utter failure. It appears that the common thread in the downfall
of Yahoo is their inability to have successfully acquired some major assets
that were either scooped up by google - or went on to become stellar
successes.

I'd really like to know the internal dynamics that resulted in this. Although,
if you heard that earnings call where Carol Bartz was totally called out - I
can only imagine that the issues are intimately related to the arrogance of
the exec staff.

