Sure thing!

Imagine if I had two friends, Google and Yahoo. Both are asking me if they can borrow a dollar.

Over the last few years when Google borrows a dollar it gives back an extra 3.5 cents the next year as a thank you. On the opposite side, when Yahoo has borrowed a dollar they've lost 13 cents within the next year.

Left to their own devices, Yahoo will implode and be out of money in under 7 years, likely much sooner. The $4 billion price tag was a way of salvaging what may still be valuable properties within Yahoo, but the company on paper is rapidly losing money at any valuation.

It's like asking someone to buy a car that's broken when it's unclear if they can fix it.

Reposting because this series of articles is by far the best explanation of the Yahoo situation over the past year or two: http://origin-www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-12-02/yaho...

No one wants to pay over $4B for it.

The costs to run it are too high and haven't or can't be reduced. Granted, the demographics Yahoo can target and Yahoo's share of internet advertising aren't the most appealing, they did buy Flurry and others which were doing fine monetizing small shares of ad revenue.

Also, at this point, under-investing in security never pays.

This: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13180033

and this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13182120