Daily Tech Snippet: Friday, December 16

• Verizon Explores Lower Price or Even Exit From Yahoo Deal: Verizon Communications Inc. is exploring a price cut or possible exit from its $4.83 billion pending acquisition of Yahoo! Inc., after the company reported a second major e-mail hack affecting as many as 1 billion user accounts, according to a person familiar with the matter. While a Verizon group led by AOL Chief Executive Officer Tim Armstrong is still focused on integration planning to get Yahoo up and running, another team, walled off from the rest, is reviewing the breach disclosures and the company’s options, said the person, who asked not to be identified discussing private information. Yahoo shares fell as much as 6.5 percent to $38.25, the biggest intraday decline since February. Verizon rose less than 1 percent to $52.07. 

• GitHub Is Building a Coder’s Paradise. It’s Not Coming Cheap: The VC-backed unicorn startup lost $66 million in nine months of 2016, financial documents show. Though the name GitHub is practically unknown outside technology circles, coders around the world have embraced the software. The startup operates a sort of Google Docs for programmers, giving them a place to store, share and collaborate on their work. But GitHub Inc. is losing money through profligate spending and has stood by as new entrants emerged in a software category it essentially gave birth to, according to people familiar with the business and financial paperwork reviewed by Bloomberg. The rise of GitHub has captivated venture capitalists. Sequoia Capital led a $250 million investment in mid-2015. But GitHub management may have been a little too eager to spend the new money. The company paid to send employees jetting across the globe to Amsterdam, London, New York and elsewhere. More costly, it doubled headcount to 600 over the course of about 18 months. GitHub lost $27 million in the fiscal year that ended in January 2016, according to an income statement seen by Bloomberg. It generated $95 million in revenue during that period, the internal financial document says. Sitting in a conference room featuring an abstract art piece on the wall and a Mad Men-style rollaway bar cart in the corner, GitHub’s Chris Wanstrath says the business is running more smoothly now and growing. “What happened to 2015?” says the 31-year-old co-founder and chief executive officer. “Nothing was getting done, maybe? I shouldn’t say that. Strike that.” “The whole product road map, we have all of our shit together in a way that we’ve never had together. I’m pretty elated right now with the way things are going,” says Wanstrath. “We’ve had a lot of ups and downs, and right now we’re definitely in an up.” Also up: expenses. The income statement shows a loss of $66 million in the first three quarters of this year. That’s more than twice as much lost in any nine-month time frame by Twilio Inc., another maker of software tools founded the same year as GitHub. At least a dozen members of GitHub’s leadership team have left since last year, several of whom expressed unhappiness with Wanstrath’s management style. GitHub says the company has flourished under his direction but declined to comment on finances. Wanstrath says: “We raised $250 million last year, and we’re putting it to use. We’re not expecting to be profitable right now.”