Mathew's comments - Latest Comments in Yahoo: We are so totally screwed

Re: Yahoo: We are so totally screwed

mathewi — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 20:25:11 -0000

Andy, you are quite right that Yahoo isn't exactly bankrupt -- it has lots
of cash flow, it has plenty of assets, and so on. And my headline was
obviously a little bit hyperbolic, in an effort to be colorful.

At the same time, however, you can't deny that Yahoo's search efforts have
been a dismal failure, and that's what the Google deal was supposed to
solve. The only option now is Microsoft -- the same deal that Jerry Yang
and the board already blew once. That's not a great position to be in, no
matter how you slice it.

Re: Yahoo: We are so totally screwed

JohnMcDonald — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 12:35:40 -0000

So is this announcement just Jerry Yang begging for Microsoft to make a new offer? Yahoo may still have traffic and profitability, but that sense of decline is inescapable. They haven't had any kind of indication of growth or innovation for a while, their biggest news has been related to potential acquisitions and partnerships. If the FTC and MSFT are going to block any joint ventures, I don't see how they are going to get their stock value back up to what the investors used to have.

Re: Yahoo: We are so totally screwed

mathewi — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 13:06:17 -0000

Andy, you are quite right that Yahoo isn't exactly bankrupt -- it has lots of cash flow, it has plenty of assets, and so on. And my headline was obviously a little bit hyperbolic, in an effort to be colorful.

At the same time, however, you can't deny that Yahoo's search efforts have been a dismal failure, and that's what the Google deal was supposed to solve. The only option now is Microsoft -- the same deal that Jerry Yang and the board already blew once. That's not a great position to be in, no matter how you slice it.

Re: Yahoo: We are so totally screwed

AndyBeard — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:20:48 -0000

Forgive me if this sounds a bit dense...

1. Yahoo is still making a profit, though obviously shareholders would like more
2. Yahoo is in a bit of a decline compared to Google, but is still growing
3. They have made some good purchases, they just haven't really meshed them together yet
4. Sure they have lost some good staff, but they still have 1000s more
5. Hiring new good staff at current valuation probably isn't going to be too difficult
6. A lot of their revenue is display advertising, which will see a decline, but they are likely to still see profits

It is quite possible that they won't see a similar valuation to the Microsoft offering earlier in the year, but if shareholders had benefitted from that deal, who is to say they wouldn't have lost a similar amount after reinvesting the proceeds of a sale in say Google?

I would have loved to see what a combined MSFT/YHOO would have done to change the landscape online, especially in search, but I still don't see why they are "totally screwed"