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Marissa Mayer, Yahoo’s former CEO, recalls her time at the tech company and shares some regrets.
During Mayer’s tenure at the helm of Yahoo, the company bought microblogging platform Tumblr for $1.1 billion in 2013, but feels they should have bought Netflix or Hulu instead.
“We looked at a transformative acquisition and bought Tumblr,” Mayer said in an interview with Tech Brew. “At the same time, we also considered whether it was possible to buy Hulu or, ironically, Netflix. And I think Netflix had $4 billion at the time and Hulu had $1.3 billion. And both would have been a better purchase in hindsight 20/20.”
In 2016, Yahoo wrote off the blogging platform’s value by $230 million. By 2019, after Verizon acquired Yahoo, the company was selling Tumblr for far less than it paid for it.
Although Yahoo hasn’t bought either streaming service, they have tried streaming with Yahoo Screen, creating shows like Sin City Saints and Other Space, and recording a sixth season of the NBC-cancelled sitcom Community.
Mayer also said the other two she had as Yahoo CEOs regretted hiring Henrique de Castro as chief operating officer instead of Lisa Utzschneider and not “doing the tax-free spin-off from Alibaba to separate the company’s assets.” .
“If we had done that, we would have saved our shareholders $10 billion or given them that money, however you look at it, in taxes paid,” she added. “And second, it would have allowed Yahoo to continue as an independent company and it might have had more success.”