Marissa Mayer, former CEO of Inc Hey ho, has some regrets. Six years after leaving the role, she opened up this week about things she should have done differently.
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“We considered a transformative acquisition, and we bought Tumblr,” she said at Tech Brew. interview.
Yahoo acquired Tumblr, a social blogging platform, for $1.1 billion in 2013 — a deal in which Meyer was heavily involved. And it soon became clear that the price tag was too high: By 2016, Yahoo was underlined Tumblr is worth more than $700 million.
But she said that in addition to Tumblr, the company has looked into the possibility of a purchase Netflix or Hulu.
“I think Netflix was $4 billion and Hulu was at $1.3 billion at the time,” she told Tech Brew. “And either of those two, with 20/20 hindsight, would have been a better acquisition.”
That’s an understatement. Today, the market value of Netflix exceeds $ 140 billion, and Disney Hulu has been majority owned since 2019.
As much as Meyer may wish she tried to take over Netflix, the regret runs deeper among the former Blockbuster executives. In 2000, Netflix founders Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph tried to sell their startup to Blockbuster for just $50 million, and they were He laughed out of the room.
At the time, of course, Netflix was a no-profit startup offering DVD rentals via postal mail, while Blockbuster stores were an essential part of American life.
Today, Meyer is the CEO and co-founder of Sunshine, a startup that offers an app that uses artificial intelligence to organize contacts on smartphones. “We thought of naming the company Mundane AI,” she told Tech Brew. “How can you take the latest AI technology and apply it to the everyday problems we all have to deal with?”
Meyer shared some other regrets. She admits that she hired the wrong person to be its COO. In 2014 she Disqualified Henrique De Castro, who personally chose him for the role in 2012 despite warnings that it was a mistake and that he was overcompensated.
She said she wishes she’d done the tax break Alibaba branch“, which would have “save our shareholders $10 billion or earn them that money” and “allow Yahoo to continue as an independent company”.
Three months ago, Yahoo, now owned by Apollo Global Managementhe said The elimination of about 1,000 jobs It will cut staff further later this year.
This story originally appeared on Fortune.com
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5 Side Struggles Where You Might Earn Over $20,000 A Year – All While Working From Home
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