In the past, I’ve mentioned how attaining success is a function of vision, ambition, execution, timing and luck.
Of course, success is also relative: measuring it is usually done relative to others.
I think entrepreneurs are successful the day they merely launch a business: identifying a concept, developing it and then launching something are monster tasks in themselves… but recognizing your limits and seeing your weaknesses - ie. understanding what you don’t know, in other words - is one thing that makes entrepreneurs become successful.
But while knowing to say “I don’t know” is a must, having the balls and backbone to occasionally say “I don’t care” is what makes entrepreneurs really successful.
If you think about it, those who are too quick to say I don’t know to please others tend to be successful but end up being subservient in one way or another. Those who become successful in a “I can show up to a meeting with my crotchless pants and get away it” do so because they can - and do - say “I don’t care” every once in a while.
Here’s a little nugget of wisdom for you: I don’t care. Learn to repeat that once in a while and you will be able to rise to the top, pants-free.
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WatchMojo NewsletterTwo years ago today, on May 8th 2006, lawyers from Fasken Martineau, a prestigious and expensive law firm in Canada unleashed Operation: Douchebag.
The venerable law firm’s pricey lawyers sent a bailiff over to my old house - which I had not lived at for about 2 years - with about 1,000 sheets outlining why I was the reincarnation of Judas.
Two years ago tonight, I was clueless and naive about the tornado that was lurking around the corner.
Unbeknownst to me at the time, that stack of papers sat at my old home… the next day, I would be getting a knock on our office doors; a knock that would usher what was arguably the turning point of my professional career, definitely the greatest lesson any entrepreneur can learn, the defining challenge of my life and the watershed moment that would ultimately shape what is WatchMojo.com today and what would make the success we now experience all that sweet.
Why was I being sued? Who was Fasken Martineau representing? Why was I being made out to be Judas?
Come back tomorrow for details of what went down on May 9th 2006: David vs. Goliath Part II, The First Act.
“Hundreds Of Millions Of Broadcast TV Dollars Up For Grabs”
Gee… I wonder where those ad dollars will go?
Hmm… anyone got a clue? From SAI:
CBS
best case: $2.2 billion -3%
worst case: $1.93 billion -15%ABC
best case: $2.35 billion -2%
worst case: $2.05 billion -15%NBC
best case: $1.78 billion -1%
worst case: $1.57 billion -13%Fox
best case: $1.85 billion +2%
worst case: $1.59 billion -12%
Traditional media won’t disappear, that’s for sure, but TV will look awfully like the way print looks today.
Is Yahoo! checkmate?
In one word: yes. And that is why MSFT is all of a sudden in no rush.
1- A company’s Board of Directors does not have to accept a buyout offer, but if it decides to sell, then it has to accept the highest bid. Remember that.
2- Technically, before the MSFT offer, YHOO had all of the options in the world, they included:
- merge with Microsoft
- merge with eBay
- merge with Viacom
- merge with CBS
- merge with FIM / sell to News Corp.
- sell to AT&T
- be taken private
- sell to Google buy Yahoo!
- status quo (a $100B market cap by 2010?)
But since MSFT launched its takeover bid, everything changed. In fact, everything crystallized when MSFT removed its bid.
I doubt any of those companies will actually undertake any time to hold talks or conduct due diligence frankly, because MSFT effectively has a right of first refusal. A ROFR gives a party the right but not the obligation to buy an asset at a given price at a given time. In this case, the given price is not set in stone per se, but determined by whatever the best offer will be.
However, by pre-emptively striking with a $31 offer - and letting it be known via the media that it would go to $33 - then no one else wants to bother to compete with MSFT.
Any company that wants to buy YHOO has to do so knowing that MSFT will go to $33, and maybe more… even PE firms cannot topple MSFT’s warchest. YHOO can remain independent but shareholders will press it to re-engage talks with MSFT. In this scenario, MSFT has in fact gotten itself the right, but not the obligation, to acquire YHOO. In derivatives parlance, this means that MSFT has a call option on YHOO.
Where this gets crazy is that a call option usually has a set strike price at a given date (or before, if it’s an American option vs. a European which has a precise date). But MSFT is not even obligated to pay $31. It can technically argue that the time value of money reduces YHOO’s value… and I believe this is why Bill Gates is arguing that YHOO is worth less with each passing day. I do not think they will push for a lower bid, but they will use this argument to ensure that YHOO feel like a $31 bid is an act of good faith.
Continuing with the derivatives / call option analogy, if MSFT holds the call option (the right to buy) and decides to exercise it, then YHOO must sell.
Did MSFT plan all of this? Who knows. But surely YHOO miscalculated everything and heads will, and should roll.
No wonder MSFT is in no hurry now.
Just wait for YHOO’s Q2 report… which will probably not surpass expectations because Jerry Yang mistakenly pumped up expectations to argue for an independent YHOO. And now, YHOO is anything but independent.
I own 5% of what I owned on Feb 1. I don’t regret not selling it all, I am just very happy I sold what I did…
Those who say Steve Ballmer’s job is on the line are crazy, they are erecting a monument in his honor in Redmond, and soon, YHOO HQ.
In the meantime, here’s a song YHOO CEO Jerry Yang might be singing over at YHOO HQ:
1. Google would have had to pay a large portion of revenues to Yahoo! as TACs (traffic acquisition costs). This means more revenue to Google, yes, but no significant increase in profits… meaning that Google’s profit margins would have shrunk. Analysts don’t like that, and as Google’s growth stalls, it cannot afford that.
2. Adding Yahoo!’s 30% market share to Google’s 60% market share would have raised the ire of the feds. Yes, I know, this would not have been the same thing as if Google owned that 30%, but the fact remains, the partnership would have awoken the feds.
Quite simply: Yahoo! has been played like a fiddle. Worse off, by even doing that little test with Google, Yahoo! is now less desirable to MSFT. In MSFT’s eyes, YHOO’s search is tainted, it’s as if a groom finds out on the eve of his wedding that his wife is not quite a virgin.
Of course, I still think that MSFT has the hots for YHOO… but it will take its time, deservedly so. After all, just because a girl tells you she is not interested or plays hard to get to the point of frustrating you does not mean you stop liking her.
That’s right, MSFT hearts YHOO.
In one word: no.
MySpace is not a startup, it’s a behemoth already and its sales cycles and patterns become quite normal.
Last night when I commented on News Corp.’s recent quarter (and on missing Rupert Murdoch’s $1B target figure), the following slipped my mind. News Corp.’s fiscal year end in June, so technically, the reduced quarterly revenues are from the Oct-Nov-Dec quarter (what I call Q4) to the Jan-Feb-Mar (what I call Q1) quarter.
99% of the time, most media companies see their strongest quarter in Q4, for a few reasons.
- in Q4, ad agencies scramble to spend all of the money marketers want to spend so they can earn their agency commission.
- in Q1, ad agencies are talking to their clients trying to fine-tune and finalize ad spends… so money always start to be spent in February and grow afterwards.
So if and only if we see a continued decline in Apr-May-Jun is it a sign of concern, otherwise, it’s business as usual… and while yes, it’s very hard to monetize social networking sites, News Corp.’s did clock in $900M and that is a very impressive sign nonetheless.
Disclaimer: News Corp? My former employer. MySpace TV? WatchMojo.com’s distribution.
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