

Yahoo acquires Xobni - posharma
http://allthingsd.com/20130703/yahoo-acquires-xobni-for-upwards-of-30-million-like-atd-said-part-2/

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baydinalex
Way back when we were just starting to think about Baydin, Xobni was one of
the models for how we could build a company based on an email plugin.

Their tech was so cool -- we'd never seen anything like it. Then Bill Gates
demoed Xobni on stage, they had so many downloads, and rumors about
acquisitions swirled in the press. It sounded so glamorous and so exciting.
And, honestly, so _fast_ and easy.

We didn't know that Xobni had been at it for two years already when they were
featured in that keynote. And we certainly weren't thinking at all about a
story of 7 years of grind, improvements, and putting one foot in front of the
other every day. Helicopter rides, keynotes, WSJ profiles, and closing
fundraising deals get the headlines, but behind the scenes, it's releases,
updates, support, and hard work.

Now that we're a few years into our own story of grind, improvements, and
putting one foot in front of the other every day, we have a ton of respect for
what Xobni put together over the past 7 years. Obviously, this isn't the
outcome that everyone was hoping for, but it's easy to look at the numbers and
forget 2008-2009, when Xobni was at the top of the world.

Thanks, Adam, Matt, and the rest of you who were early in Xobni for building
something magical and inspiring us to build something of our own. And
congratulations on the end of a long journey.

~~~
ajju
It has become rare to see such genuine meaningul positive comments on HN but
it's gratifying to see it still happens. Bravo BaydinAlex!

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TallGuyShort
I would ask who they're going to acquire tomorrow, but that would be
ridiculous and silly. Tomorrow's a federal holiday in the States.

~~~
jfb
Oh, I don't know -- desperate money never sleeps.

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DanBlake
Seems like they would have been better off just taking the rumored 20m from
microsoft in 2008 (before they raised FIVE additional rounds of funding to the
tune of nearly 40m).

~~~
2pasc
That's for sure. But hindsight is 20/20, and when you are growing like a weed,
like they were at the time, it's easy to be caught in the "I want more"
mindset, especially when you are a younger founder.

~~~
Andnowfor
The big assumption here of course is they had the choice.

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2pasc
Good point.

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presty
Funny no one mentions that the founders left the company long ago.

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jdale27
According to Techcrunch, the price was "somewhere in the $60 million-plus
range" ([http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/03/source-xobni-was-
acquired-f...](http://techcrunch.com/2013/07/03/source-xobni-was-acquired-for-
more-than-60-million/)). That makes it look a little better, considering they
raised nearly $42 million over the years.

~~~
mathrawka
I imagine they raised that $42m at a higher valuation... giving investors
preferred stock, meaning normal stock for employees was worth nothing.

~~~
Zelphyr
Proof of why, as jwz says, stock options are a stupid tax and a lottery.

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mattmaroon
It's not fair to call them a lottery because as a class they have a positive
expectation. (At worst they are worth $0, but clearly some make money.)
They're not a tax either.

They're just a riskier form of compensation. Like any investment, you get a
premium based on the level of risk. Their expected value is still pretty good
though if you're working for a good startup.

~~~
Andnowfor
Correction Matt, if you purchase them (as an employee) their cost is
definitely not zero, therefore you can lose money.

~~~
Zelphyr
Agreed. Also, when you choose options over salary then their cost is greater
than $0 because thats money you otherwise would have received had you chosen
salary. When the options cannot be exercised because they have little to no
value (which, in my experience, is nearly always the case) then you actually
lose money.

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btucker
All these acquisitions by Yahoo is making it feel like 2005.

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rabble
That's pretty funny, Xobni's CEO is Jeff Bonforte who used to be a yahoo
running IM and eventually part of the business where delicious was. Now he's
been brought back in.

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aresant
I haven't encountered Xobni since I quit Outlook a few years back, but at the
time I remember it being a very innovative and interesting layer that I
actually got value from.

Pairing the Xobni brains w/the Yahoo Mail product could create a compelling
reason to give something other than GMAIL a look.

~~~
rocky1138
If Y! Mail wants to pull a ton of users from Gmail they should offer NSA-free,
snooping-free email similar to how DDG does search.

~~~
packetslave
How do you propose that Yahoo (a US-based company, subject to US laws, just
like Google) do this?

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malandrew
I've always been curious if is it possible for a US C-Corp to be able to
change it's country of incorporation from the US to another country? If they
do, how is equity handled? Would public companies be able to replace common
and preferred stock with ADRs?

This question seems even more pertinent now that there is a Presidential
Executive Order that was issued that state that a even the assets of a US
company abroad are subject to laws in the US, which strangely puts US
companies in a really touch position of not being able to comply with both US
and European laws simultaneously.

~~~
wavefunction
Start a shell corp in Country B, sell Company A to Company B for cheap!!!
Voila, you've just moved your company out of Country A.

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kunle
Still have Xobni installed, it's been very useful. Hope it gets better -
congrats to these guys.

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someone_inside
A word of advice: stay clear of Jeff Bonforte. Cronyism defines his career and
nothing more.

~~~
bonforte
So true: stay away from Jeff Bonforte. Wait...I'm Jeff Bonforte. Dammit, this
is going to be harder than I thought.

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yashg
Yahoo it seems is acquiring a startup a day. Are they going to buy entire
Internet?

~~~
bifrost
I hope so.

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ajju
Well done Xobni

