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Comment by ameen | Hacker News Reader

Based on most of their recent acquisitions (Tumblr, Summly, Qwiki) I'm inclined to believe that they're working on some sort of an automated(?) product for the publishing industry (New Media, perhaps).

I just wish Yahoo's acquisition spree doesn't end badly with employees leaving, because the IP really doesn't seem to be worth anything (in the case of Summly, Qwiki, etc).

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Remember the open-source qwiki clone, fqwiki? It was on HN the same time qwiki raised their first $8M. The demo[1] used wikipedia's page on "snake oil", very funny.

1. http://banksytheluckystiff.github.io/fqwiki/

What are the odds of that strategy having a positive ROI? It seems like Marissa is calling a Hail Mary.

Hail Mary's work sometimes. I hope it works for Yahoo; I like good competition in all spaces.

Probably 100% odds of being positive for Mayer.

> I just wish Yahoo's acquisition spree doesn't end badly with employees leaving

Right now it is just short term pump and dump. There is 0 strategy. It will only end up with employees getting fired due to Yahoo executives mistakes.

Without being present in the relevant board meetings, it's hard to say this with any realistic certainty... but it certainly does ring true given the hulking, festering mass of anecdotal evidence Yahoo keeps leaving in its wake.

And precisely how many of the CEOs of the acquired companies are you friends with? Three of my friends companies have been acquired by Yahoo, and I quite like Marisa's strategy, as well as the talent she's bringing on

Mayer has some performance-linked bonuses and the acquisitions probably some how improve them.

So it isn't an executive mistake per se but rather misaligned executive and shareholder incentives.

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