this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024
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How did he scam Yahoo?
His dotcom-era company was a “radio on the internet” website (this was actually parodied in HBO’s Silicon Valley). As you’ve probably noticed, no one listens to radio on the internet because the entire point of radio is that it can be accessed by anyone with a radio signal, which is much easier to obtain than an internet connection and more importantly is free.
He then sold this doomed company to Yahoo. But not only that, he actually shorted the Yahoo stock that he received in compensation because he knew that his company was vaporware and as a result he got paid twice (once for the sale and then later because Yahoo shares tanked when they had to entirely write off his acquired company, among other dumb investments they made).
Why is that so bad? Back in the dialup era, one of the first things I did on the internet was search for radio stations that were impossibly beyond my horizon, things like KCRW, WFMU and the BBC, by searching for the station's website and clicking on the "listen live" link that opened either the Real Player or Windows Media Player program.
Then there was TuneIn, by then my list of stations had expanded to include KFJC (Bay Area college radio station), KEXP (public station from Seattle), Radio Nova (electronic/soul station from France).
Nowadays, the MyTuner app might be the one I use most often than any other cellphone app except for the messaging one. Now I've included WPRB (Princeton), KALX (Berkeley), Soho Radio (London) and NTS Radio (also London) to my list of favorites.
My point is that radio on the internet, in one form or another, has been an integral part of my daily internet experience since basically Day One.
The concept is fine, and I’m not begrudging people who use it. But purely from a financial perspective it’s not worth anywhere close to what Cuban sold it for ($5.7 billion in 1999 for a single company that had effectively no revenue by comparison). From my other comment - the biggest US internet radio company has a market cap of $250 million today and that number has pretty much only gone down.
Jeezus...! There does seem to be a sucker born every minute, even at the Harvard Business School, CEO-level. I wonder if those who green-lit the purchase were probably on the older side, with money to burn and overwhelmed by the technical jargon, none willing to admit the king had no clothes?
But what if we sold them A.I.-powered, bespoke NFT radio, on the blockchain?