Prosus' Stack Overflow pain

[Daniel Puchert]

Prosus' R21 billion Stack Overflow disaster

Prosus bought Stack Overflow in August 2021 for $1.7 billion. Three years later, it has written off $1.2 billion, which equates to R21 billion.

Prosus is majority-owned by South Africa’s Naspers and is used as the company’s global technology investment arm.

 

[Jan van Riebeeckstad]

You are worthless @StackOverflowLedMeHere

 

[RedViking]

Naspers seems to be experts in losing money (lately).

 

[rpm]

Naspers seems to be experts in losing money.

They rival the best. This is not the only bad investment. In fact, it is not even the worst one.

 

[Swa]

They just keep losing money. Should invest in Temu and Shein.

 

[RedViking]

They just keep losing money. Should invest in Temu and Shein.

/looks skeef at Tencent

At least the Directors are getting richer. And Bob got a nice retirement gift.

 

[hj007]

Nobody pays a CEO to cautiously buy other companies clearly. What's the downside really of just swinging for the fences? You lose your job? boohoo, Bob already earned a billion.

 

[Stinkbeaver]

Naspers and Multichoice are rivals when it comes to making loses.

 

[Blackhand]

Interesting, didn’t know Prosus bought Stack Overflow.

I think most people in tech could have said it was a bad buy though. The sentiment around SO has been very negative for years and active users has fallen off a cliff, and continues to plummet.

People feel more comfortable asking questions on Reddit or Discord (bad for searchability).

 

[backstreetboy]

Prosus bought Stack Overflow in August 2021 for $1.7 billion.

OpenAI a year later: Hold my beer...

 

[Kornhub]

They rival the best. This is not the only bad investment. In fact, it is not even the worst one.

What does rpm have in his investment list ?

 

[ToxicBunny]

They rival the best. This is not the only bad investment. In fact, it is not even the worst one.

Prosus/Naspers/Multichoice (however you want to look at it) have only really ever made one really spectacularly good investment and that was TenCent, and that investment has largely paid for all the myriad of fsckups they invested since then.

 

[Swa]

/looks skeef at Tencent

At least the Directors are getting richer. And Bob got a nice retirement gift.

Tencent is also coming under fire from Chinese authorities. Better to sell now.

 

[hj007]

Prosus/Naspers/Multichoice (however you want to look at it) have only really ever made one really spectacularly good investment and that was TenCent, and that investment has largely paid for all the myriad of fsckups they invested since then.

VC is extremely low probability... just keep losing money for that one winner. But at least out of every hundred, if you have a single Tencent you're golden forever.

Doesn't help if you didn't get your Tencent though before you go bust..

 

[ToxicBunny]

VC is extremely low probability... just keep losing money for that one winner. But at least out of every hundred, if you have a single Tencent you're golden forever.

Doesn't help if you didn't get your Tencent though before you go bust..

Usually yeah, but Prosus/Naspers possibly made the mistake of divesting from Tencent to try fund their other 99 failures.

But they also aren't entirely operating in the VC space, they're putting cash into "existing" businesses and missing the boat entirely.

 

[r00igev@@r]

That is about a big of a no Vaseline job as the Please Call me scam.

Nothing ever works on Stackoverflow. Its a heap of stinking poo.

 

[system32]

Naspers seems to be experts in losing money (lately).

Experts indeed:
Prosus lost $2.1b on Indian Byju (educational technology startup)
See https://techcrunch.com/2024/06/24/prosus-zeroes-out-9-6-byjus-stake/

Doing well.

 

[pratlou]

Uncle Bob problems don't just stop right? Prosus really wasted shareholders money with these worthless acquisitions they did under Bob with an impression that they will 10x.

 

[Johand]

They rival the best. This is not the only bad investment. In fact, it is not even the worst one.

Well they haven't been doing well. But they are very, very far from the best at losing money. I think Sasol is probably the best company to lose value consistently whilst still remaining in business.