I am going to give Yahoo the benefit of the doubt. I have a hard time believing that they'd pay $30M to gain five programmers. There's a lot more to this than we are aware of. C'mon folks, if you think the math doesn't add-up (as an acqui-hire) don't you think the folks at Yahoo can do basic arithmetic as well.

I've also read a few posts on this thread saying as much as "there are no smart people at Yahoo" or "everyone at Yahoo is an idiot" (paraphrasing). Coming from folks at HN I think these kinds of statements are really unbecoming. Of course there are a lot of amazing people at Yahoo. Tons of them.

Here's a bit of news for detractors: Business is hard. No, it is fucking hard. And, at their size and scale it is even harder. And, at the break-neck competitive speed of the internet, even harder still.

Mere humans make mistakes. We can read the tea-leaves wrong and take the wrong road --or one that is less than ideal. In business this can cost you years before you regain your prior position. What matters is that you do not give up.

I like Yahoo very much. They've been around for a long time and hopefully they'll be around a lot longer. They might eventually find a groove to fall into and light-up the afterburners. Stupid they are not. What they are doing is hard. What all of us are doing is hard, at any scale.