They ended up with it accidentally, didn't they? As part of owning Yahoo! (which owned Tumbler).

Yahoo bought Tumblr for completely irrational reasons years ago and it became dead weight.

Of course now they can't split it back off to live on its own - they'll just kill it instead.

Actually, why can't they? Could someone explain the executive thinking behind this hesitation?

Its career suicide to sell off a property that ends up successful once independent of your business.

Nobody thinks twice about burning something to the ground, though. Thats just a cost of doing business.

Seems like such a waste.