It usually sucks to be the employee of a company that's just been LBOd because layoffs are almost certainly coming, and whether they are or not, you're going to have to do more work, probably with less resources.
But for society as a whole it should be a win if competently executed; getting the same product/service out of less resources leaves the now excess resources free to be used elsewhere.
Or its about forcing companys to do trendy things - bad for the long term by selling off core assets on the cheap BT selling O2 is a classic example.
Once you are in public domain I think in the long run being subject to all sorts of positive and negative inputs e.g Icahn, Pershing square weed out weak links and bad fruit. Many times good fruit gets thrown out too without realizing the tree will not yield any more produce if done so.
Finance has a very simple function in terms of what it does for companies. If its making money => it works. If it WAS making money and isn't now => it can still make money with change.
It blows my mind how people can be fooled by money.
Icahn is professional liar and has profited greatly from his ability to fool and deceive.
I don't know the whole story behind this, but Icahn calling out Andreesen for enriching himself at the expense of a company is laughable. The pot calling the kettle black.
Regardless, it's too super rich guys throwing feces at each other.
I have a slight inclination to believe Andreesen, but who knows, really.
Even his Twitter profile bio agrees:
"Me, I make money studying natural stupidity."
* Throughout the eBay board’s process of divesting Skype, I fully disclosed
my potential interest and recused myself from all deliberations on the
transaction, including all discussions, negotiations, and decisions. I was
uninvolved in eBay’s decision to spin off Skype and in eBay’s decision to
choose to partner with the Silver Lake syndicate.
* eBay’s retained ownership in the Skype spinoff was 30% vs. Andreessen
Horowitz’s approximately 3%. That much larger ownership gave eBay a far
bigger role in decision making on Skype after the spinoff than Andreessen
Horowitz, as well as a far bigger economic payoff on the sale to Microsoft.
http://blog.pmarca.com/2014/03/03/my-statement-on-ebay-director-role-and-governance/
Anyway, it does seem a little sketchy, but on the other hand, marc seems to have acted well within established business practices.
(3) Restrictions on use of company confidential information by
any director for any purpose other than that company’s benefit.
Even a wikipedia quote is problematic:
"Through our research, we found that Skype had a core group of engineers who were completely dedicated to the mission. They stayed through the eBay acquisition and were hugely determined to make Skype the communications company of the future."
Did he learn that as a board member, or from research done at a16z?
As for Andreessen's motive, I suppose he probably thinks Icahn is making a power play and is more interested in fending off Icahn than in defending himself in this particular instance. Icahn clearly wants Andreessen on the defensive, so it kind of makes sense, though it all feels a bit embarrassing.
The question for Andreessen is that did he think (and could prove) that he's a more ethical businessman than Icahn (note I am not saying a better person here) Apparently not, at least in the Skype sale.
Nowadays, it's a place to get ripped off. I have to say that I haven't even thought about eBay for many months.
The company has growth being driven by things like Paypal, enterprise storefronts and subsidiary brands abroad.
1. Cheap crap from Taiwan
2. Random appliances parts (when something breaks and all you have is a part number)
without giving your credit card to some Chinese or yet another made-in-90ties warehouse website.
What exists like this now? What market would be best served by this? Is your app in to YC yet?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCZRk1lL90Q
Well worth the listen.
Note: since this $300MM fund, a16z has gone on to raise enormous funds many multiples of the size.
The shareholders could simply kick him out if they felt he wasn't doing his job. Instead they re-elected him with near-unanimity.
The alleged behavior in question is not that he didn't do his job, but that he committed various torts and federal crimes.
Carl Icahn has recently bought a bunch of ebay stock. He has claimed the company is mismanaged. He has also personally attacked Marc Andreesen. Here is the accusation from Ichan:
1) Marc Andreesen was/is on ebay's board.
2) While on ebay's board, Marc bought most of Skype from eBay.
3) He flipped Skype to Microsoft in less than 2 years, earning himself a multi-billion dollar profit.
Carl Icahn is running Marc Andreesen name through the mud. The basic accusation is that if Marc knew Skype was so valuable as the smart phone wars were heating up, he had an obligation as a board member to give ebay better advice on the divesture.
Now Marc is fighting back.
This is a comic schoolboy fight among billionaires.
Edit: After a bit of fact checking, it looks like A16Z only invested $50M in the skype deal. Their fund at the time was around $300M. His gain was on the order of $150 million, not billions. A16Z only had around 2% of skype, and ebay retained 35%.