Comment by canistr | Hacker News Reader

Comment by canistr | Hacker News Reader

To me, the most fascinating aspect of the article is the list of Yahoo acquisitions since Mayer joined:

July 17, 2012 Marissa Mayer becomes Yahoo CEO

October 25, 2012 Stamped (Social Recommendation)

December 4, 2012 OnTheAir (Video Conferencing)

January 22, 2013 Snip.it (Social Network)

February 12, 2013 Alike (Social Recommendation)

March 20, 2013 Jybe (Social Recommendation)

March 25, 2013 Summly (News Aggregation, Summarization)

May 1, 2013 Astrid (Productivity)

May 9, 2013 GoPollGo (Real-time Surveys)

May 9, 2013 MileWise (Reward Programs)

May 10, 2013 Loki Studios (Mobile Gaming)

May 17, 2013 Tumblr (Blogging)

May 23, 2013 PlayerScale (Online Gaming)

June 12, 2013 GhostBird Software (Mobile Photography Apps)

June 13, 2013 Rondee (Video Conferencing)

July 2, 2013 Bignoggins (Fantasy Sports)

July 2, 2013 Qwiki (Automated Video Production)

July 3, 2013 Xobni (Address Book Apps/CRM)

July 18, 2013 Ztelic (Social Analytics)

July 31, 2013 Lexity (E-commerce App Platform)

I found this Michael Wolff comment very interesting: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/wolff/2013/07/....

Basically, an influential shareholder has resorted to spending company money (from deferred dividends and sale of the Alibaba stake, etc.) to drive up the company's stock, after which the shareholder cashed out, as the stock soared.

Thanks, that was an extremely interesting read.

There seemed to be no rhyme or reason behind the Yahoo acquisitions. For example, why Xobni? The two founders have already left Xobni. So if it was an acquihire, then who was Yahoo trying to acquihire? And if it wasn't, then why did they shut down their products?

But now I understand what was happening. It didn't matter what Yahoo was buying, or whether any of it made sense. In fact, the less sense it made, the more buzz got created, as people tried to figure out Marissa Mayer's master plan.

That was unreadable, I had to stop after a few paragraphs. Could he sound any more biased and un-objective?

I know an opinion piece doesn't have to be neutral, but that was way shrill.

Holy crap. Normally my reaction when "yet another social, mobile, recommendation" app company comes out is "why the hell..."

I now know why. There's serious exit money to be had.

Put another way: since March 20, Yahoo has averaged an acquisition every ten days.

It's funny, i just summarized her davos talk last night and looking at these aquisitions, they all fall into her 'vision'. The only one that stands out is tumblr since she said they were looking to do small aquisitions, therefore she is following her vision and the market will decide if it is successful. If she succeeds, the media will be praising her to the moon and if she flops, we will hear ll the scathing blog posts. So far she has raised yahoo's stock price, which has taken some pressure off here especially from some vocal yahoo shareholders.

I'd correct: If she succeeds, she will be praised to the moon, and if she fails, most people will say "heh, Yahoo! was doomed to irrelevance anyway" and forget about it in a few months.

I'm starting to believe more and more (although not fully convinced yet) that the former is the most likely outcome; she's in a good position right now.

What's her vision?

The stock price has been driven by share buybacks, and the appreciation of Alibaba.

It's more accurate to say that financial markets, past acquisitions, and activist investors have driven up the share price.

That said, the share-price uptick has extended her "honeymoon." Hopefully, all of these acquisitions, cultural changes, etc. add up to something.

I hadn't heard of a single one of those except for Tumblr. Why are they valuable?

I'm not sure about the others, but Lexity has an actual business model.

Well, it's not like the ideas were gonna come from inside Yahoo.

Meyer has proven that she knows how to spend money. That might actually qualify as progress for Yahoo! Market seems to like it, but that can change quickly.

It's like the wasp that lays her eggs inside a big juicy caterpillar.

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