When asked by the speaker "Are you glad you didn't buy Yahoo?," Ballmer responded, "You know, times change. When you ask any CEO [that type of question] after the market has fallen apart, it's 'hallelujah.' Sometimes, you're lucky."
In 2008, Microsoft made a massive unsolicited $47.5 billion bid for Yahoo, in an effort to merge the companies and better compete against Google in major markets. Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang rejected the offer using a poison pill plan.
At the time, Yahoo was valued at around $40 billion. That figure has collapsed to just over $20 billion today, so it does seem that Microsoft got "lucky" in getting rejected.
Microsoft still signed a deal with Yahoo, which allows Microsoft's Bing tech to power Yahoo's search, in exchange for advertising sales.
Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 19 Oct 2011 23:59
