Name: Why Walmart and Yahoo’s Plans Might Flop
Uploaded: 2015-12-11
Duration: 2 min 31 s
Description: Fortune’s Aaron Task and Stephen Gandel explain why.

[ MUSIC ] I wanna play a game that I call Flop or Fly. This is a new thing here. I'm gonna read you three big business ideas that happened this week, or that came out of the week. And you're gonna tell me if you think it's gonna flop or really take off. You ready? Is it clear? [ LAUGH ] I think so. [ CROSSTALK ] Number one, number one. Walmart rolled out its own mobile pay service this week called Walmart Pay. And it's really the first retailer to do so, flop or fly? Steve. Okay, so it's gonna flop. It's really hard to beat cash and credit cards, a system we already have. There are a few retailers that have Starbucks has done pretty well with it but Walmart has not been proficient in moving into the digital economy. All right. Erin what do you think. I'm going to go with I'm going to say it's going to fly because if Walmart wants something to happen in Walmart stores, if they give Walmart shoppers a discount If they use Walmart Pay, they will use Walmart Pay. I agree with you. I'm gonna say fly with this one, because I think it speeds up check- out, it's getting ahead of other retailers, and I think they really double down on this [ UNKNOWN ]. Okay. Second Yahoo is gonna reverse it's plan to spin off its take in Alibaba and spin off its core Internet business instead. Big story this week, flop or fly? Aaron, I'll start with you. Alright. So you know I used to work there and I own a stock. And it's a very rough day today on that stock I think this is going to fly, but the question is at what price? I think there's buyers out there for Yahoo's core businesses but nobody can value it. Right now it's valued at less than zero. I think it's worth something more than zero. But at what price is the question? Okay, Steve. I think the deal itself will flop, it won't actually happen. Because the market already is voting against it. And clearly they've been tied to the market. They called off the other deal because the market didn't like it. So I think, they've said it's going to a year, in the course of that year we'll having something else I'm going to flop also, but for another reason, because the whole reason to do it was to avoid the tax implication. But many people think there's going to be tax implications here too, and also it's problems go deeper. That is true. You cannot leave A non- operating company as the holding company, right? So that's an issue of [ UNKNOWN ] it is. Okay, last one. Two research analysts have now flooded the idea that Apple should just buy GoPro. Again, this is not, this is just a suggestion. But if Apple were to do that, buy GoPro, flop or fly? Steve. Flop. There is not a big enough audio. For what Apple needs to move the needle, there is not a big enough audience for those specialized cameras. I gotta agree with Steven. It's a flop. It's not gonna happen. Apple thinks that they do cameras very well themselves and goPro I don't think has enough cache for Apple. They bought Beats because people wanna spend more money for Beats. I don't think people spend more money for goPro. [ MUSIC ]

Why Walmart and Yahoo’s Plans Might Flop

Fortune’s Aaron Task and Stephen Gandel explain why.