"Weird Al" Yankovic - Whatever You Like

Andrew Mager · Top Commenter · Developer Community Manager at Spotify · 273 subscribers
Really good move for eBay, but very bad for Hunch.

That's like selling a book of magic tricks to a old, rich business man who doesn't really have any hope in life.
4 · · November 21 at 10:55am

Jonathan Jaeger · Top Commenter · Campaign Manager at XL Marketing
$80 million for a startup that didn't seem to be on the road to high revenues/profitability? Dixon assembled a great team of engineers, so despite the large amount of funding, probably a decent outcome given it was a talent acquisition.
1 · · November 21 at 12:24pm

Sean Sullivan · Top Commenter · Fort Lauderdale, Florida
That's possibly the worst most inaccurate analogy ever posted on TC. Good job.
3 · · November 21 at 3:35pm

Eric Lau · Harvard Business School
Very similar to when eBay bought StumbleUpon in 2007, which they ended up spinning back out less than two years later. If you fail at first, try, try again?
1 · · November 21 at 2:05pm

Dean Higginbotham · Top Commenter
I would guess that the tech Hunch has is extremely difficult to build at scale. Our recommendation engine "only" does books/music/movies/software and has taken over a year to develop (although, imo, it's one of the best). Doing a generic recommendation engine (from the article: "...help surface more quality recommendations from eBay’s 'long tail' of unstructured listings.") is astounding! Good on the Hunch team!
November 21 at 12:36pm

Sean Sullivan · Top Commenter · Fort Lauderdale, Florida
eBay seems to be one of the better companies regarding timely and intelligent acquisitions. Yes, they departed from a couple of them that might prove to be unwise. But overall, post Whitman I think eBay is on a much better path. And PayPal, continues to be one of the best investments for any company in the last 25 years. Congrats to Dixon.
November 21 at 3:38pm

Dan Bowen · Top Commenter
I have absolutely no take on an argument for or against this purchase...what I am curious about is whether or not Hunch ever made money? Was it another burn rate with a promise that returned 4X on the investment? If so, is the team locked up with eBay now for y years? I'd take a 4x return on my money any day, just a little more curious about the model.
November 21 at 8:18am

Eric Rosser Eldon · Top Commenter · Writer at TechCrunch
Asked about that, they wouldn't say....
1 · · November 21 at 8:23am

Mitch Grasso · Founder & CTO at SlideRocket
It's unlikely a 4x return on investment since the VCs probably didn't get 100% of the company for their $20M.
November 21 at 8:33am

Ashkan Karbasfrooshan · Top Commenter · CEO at WatchMojo.com
My guess is investors had 50% of the company after investing $20M. They wanted a 2x return on their investment to sell, they pitched this to a few parties and eBay bit.
November 21 at 8:34am
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Tony Adam · Top Commenter · EIR at Science
This is good news for Ranker, they have a pretty interesting and detailed Taste Graph that has emerged from all their user voting data...
November 21 at 1:43pm

Adil Jauhar · Top Commenter · Kingston University
not good for me...3am, on ebay with quick paypal purchasing at hand...my statements will not be happy.
November 21 at 7:56am

Kevin Murphy · Works at Beyond the Rack
Wonder if eBay will expose the hunch engine through x.com for wider adoption.
November 21 at 4:17pm

Dom Anthony Narducci · Top Commenter · Embry-Riddle FL/AZ
Like I said to Arrington, hope this goes better for them than StumbleUpon did.
November 21 at 7:31am

Nishith Rastogi · Goa
May the awesomeness of Hunch Spread!
November 21 at 7:58am

Mike Kijewski · Top Commenter · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Hopefully they maintain the API.
November 21 at 7:48am

Eric Rosser Eldon · Top Commenter · Writer at TechCrunch
Hi Mike, just updated with my interview notes. Asked about the API and Dixon said yes, they would maintain i t.
November 21 at 7:51am

Mike Kijewski · Top Commenter · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Eric Rosser Eldon Sounds good!
November 21 at 8:18am

Sukanta Ganguly
Unbelievable, but this is Ebay.
November 21 at 7:22am

Max Woolf · Top Commenter · Carnegie Mellon University · 406 subscribers
They bought PayPal, keep that in mind.
November 21 at 7:25am

Tyler Willis · Top Commenter · Vice President, Business Development at Unified · 125 subscribers
Their acquisitions lately have been pretty impressive: Milo, RedLaser, GSI, Magento, and now hunch.

Their integration record post-acquisition is ok: PayPal (worked really well), StubHub, BillMeLater, etc.
November 21 at 9:33am

Eric Rosser Eldon · Top Commenter · Writer at TechCrunch
Tyler Willis Yeah, questions is definitely how the integration goes.
1 · · November 21 at 10:24am
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Youssef Sarhan · Top Commenter
Really?
November 21 at 7:10am

Eric Northman · Bronx Leadership Academy
you jest