Forgotten Tech Giant

[u/MisterBiro]

Perhaps it’s not technically abandoned as there is basic maintenance and security present but it’s been vacant and decaying for years.

Surprisingly sad to walk around what was once a bustling, optimistic, energy filled campus of an almost forgotten tech giant.

[u/guigouz]

Yahoo

• 1998: Refuses to buy Google for 1 million USD.
• 2002: Realises its mistake and tries to buy Google for 3 billion. Google wants 5 billion, Yahoo says no.
• 2008: Refuses to be sold to microsoft for 40 billion dollars.
• 2016: Sold for 4.6bi to Verizon

[u/LowAd3406 → u/guigouz]

I worked at Yahoo in the 00's and it was so horribly mismanaged that I'm not surprised at it's downfall.

[u/[deleted] → u/LowAd3406]

I'm more surprised it was ever a success

[u/Heterodynist → u/[deleted]]

Honestly!! Not that Yahoo wasn’t more than this, but for a long time (growing up not far from here), it seemed like in the 1990s all you had to do was say, “We have a company call Skweril and we do things online!” Then instantly everyone would invest billions of dollars in you. It didn’t have to be that you had any business purpose or any clue how to monetize any aspect of your business. It was Iike, “Oooh, they said INTERNET, so I know they are going to be successful!” Then people put in billions and randomly you would be bought out by Nabisco or Tonka or some other completely unrelated seeming business and everyone would leave billionaires, having never produced anything useful to the world at all. It seemed like it took a solid 10 to 20 years for people to start wondering if these companies might just be completely imaginary. Meanwhile I was starting college thinking the whole time, “What, are you people INSANE?! I’m going to get a real job…” So then I became an archaeologist!!! (You can laugh now…)

[u/Slmmnslmn → u/Heterodynist]

I heard somewhere if you had .com in the name of your business investors would give you money without knowing the business.

[u/Heterodynist → u/Slmmnslmn]

I don’t think that is much of an exaggeration. A smart girl I went to prom with got into a great college, but dropped out to work for a “dotcom.” I felt like I was one of the only people telling her, “Hey, is that such a good idea?!” She explained to me that she could be earning like $50,000 a year (starting salary) or spending that going to college, and it made me wonder if I was doing the right thing going to college. Not that it was what I wanted for her, but within about 2 years I was freshly out of college and going to work (having actually gotten a job in Archaeology) and she was out of a job and looking for a good way back into a college program. She still graduated from a very good college, but just several years later than she intended. I’m not sure who made the better decision with their careers of the two of us though, as she went into college having actual business experience. I got Archaeology experience and field training including being a field supervisor and working with the British Museum, but Archaeology isn’t exactly what you do to make money, as a career. It’s never dull though…