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Ex-Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer admits spending $4B for Netflix—now worth over $140B—...

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Ex-Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer admits spending $4B for Netflix—now worth over $140B—would’ve been a better ‘transformative acquisition’ than Tumblr

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Content Is Still King for Streaming: Analyst

Streaming giants like Netflix (NFLX) and Paramount (PARA) are doing all they can to fight for viewers, but a new survey out from Deloitte shows streamers may be in some trouble. Jana Arbanas and Jeff Loucks from Deloitte joined Yahoo Finance's Seana Smith and Dave Briggs to discuss the latest digital media trends, including subscription fatigue. "What people are looking for is really compelling unique content, that's why people sign up" said Arbanas. He also points to what the services are providing instead of the price of the streamer when it comes to subscribers turning away, "It's not necessarily cost, it's really about trying to find really great content that speaks to them." The survey polled over 2,000 consumers and it showed that digital media is becoming more interconnected. Fifty-four percent of consumers watch shows or movies on streaming services after hearing about them on social media. "Our younger generations are really looking for a tapestry frankly of media, they are interacting not only with different streaming platforms, but also with user generated content with gaming" Abranas added. Watch the full video here Key Video Moments 00:10 What consumers are looking for from Streaming Services 00:35 Younger Generations looking for more connectivity 01:05 How companies bringing different media typed together

Steve Mollman
Sun, May 7, 2023, 2:51 AM GMT+9·3 min read

Marissa Mayer, former CEO of Yahoo, 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 looked at a transformative acquisition, and we bought Tumblr,” she said in a Tech Brew interview.

Yahoo acquired Tumblr, a social blogging platform, for $1.1 billion in 2013—a deal Mayer was heavily involved in. It soon became clear the price was far too high: By 2016, Yahoo had written down Tumblr’s value by more than $700 million.

But in addition to Tumblr, she said, the company had considered the possibility of buying 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, with hindsight being 20/20, would have been a better acquisition.”

That's something of an understatement. Today Netflix’s market cap tops $140 billion, and Disney has majority-owned Hulu since 2019.

As much as Mayer might wish she’d attempted to acquire Netflix, however, the regret runs much deeper among former Blockbuster executives. In 2000, Netflix cofounders Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph tried to sell their startup to Blockbuster for a mere $50 million—and were laughed out of the room.

At the time, of course, Netflix was an unprofitable startup offering DVD rentals via postal mail, while Blockbuster stores were a fixture of American life.

Today, Mayer is the CEO and cofounder of Sunshine, a startup offering an app that uses A.I. to organize contacts on smartphones. “We mused about naming the company Mundane AI,” she told Tech Brew. “How do you take cutting-edge AI and just apply it to everyday problems that we all have to deal with?”

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