Podcast #21: Mayer Lemons — a chat about Yahoo’s recent acquisitions
Marissa Mayer’s Yahoo acquisitions: this week Paul Ford and Rich Ziade start the discussion with a recent Gizmodo article by the very talented Sophie Kleeman about the fate of all 53 companies Yahoo has purchased under Mayer’s leadership. Topics covered include acqui-hires, managing up v. managing down, Silicon Valley’s disdain for humans doing normal human things, and Rich’s favorite Yahoo acquisition, Summly. They also float an alternate title for the episode: “Daddy Issues.”
Rich: Now, before we get into this, it’s really easy, and morbidly satisfying, to point out the failures — if you want to call them failures — of big, powerful media figures, CEOs and the like. So I don’t know what I’m getting at here, I just want to acknowledge that it’s just fun to do.
Paul: Do you want to talk about Summly?
Rich: You know, I…all right, so here’s the backstory with Summly. You watch people raise money, and start — yeah, he’s raising money and starting a company, and there’s this guy who started it, I think his name is Nick D’Aloisio or something, and he was like, 14 when he started it.
Paul: He was very, very young.
Rich: No joke. I’m not even, I don’t think…
Paul: 14 or 15, yeah.
Rich: 14 or 15. And he’d raised money and we couldn’t gather what he did because the thing I think never made it out. I think there was a video, and there was a pitch, and he had this incredibly arrogant sort of squinty…
Paul: Wow, so you’re sitting here making fun of a 14-year-old for not —
Rich: I’m making fun of a 14-year-old.
Paul: For not building a great enough start-up?
Rich: Pretty much.
Paul: You’re the worst person I’ve ever met.
Paul: I think it’s annoying to product people that humans aren’t robots. I think it’s actually kind of a pain in the ass.
Rich: Of course.
Paul: We’re unpredictable, we’re annoying, we’re driven by facts —
Rich: Look at that guy out on the street raising his hand to try to stop an automobile to take him somewhere.
Paul: Yeah.
Rich: How ridiculous, if he’s got a phone in his pocket.
Paul: This is stupid.
Rich: This is stupid.
Paul: He is a flesh commodity that we could put into the backseat of a nice Subaru.
Rich: Look at that woman calling a restaurant to place an order and then taking her credit card out every time.
Paul: God, it’s just friction.
Rich: Phone calls? Talking to another human being, who would rather be cooking the fish…
Paul: Yeah.
Rich: Instead he’s gotta get on the phone, get a piece of paper out to take this order. Ridiculous!
Links
- The starting point of the episode: “Here’s What Happened To All 53 of Marissa Mayer’s Yahoo Acquisitions”
- “Trouble dot Tumblr dot com”
- Marissa Mayer pushes back against the media narrative around Yahoo’s holiday party
- Rich loves Summly.
Track Changes is the weekly technology and culture podcast from Postlight, hosted by Paul Ford and Rich Ziade. Coordination, research, and management by Elizabeth Minkel, who also prepared the summary of this episode. Production and editing by Tom Meyers. Podcast logo and design by Matt Quintanilla of Postlight. We record with Paul Ruest and Noriko Okabe at Argot Studios. Listen to more episodes here.
