VC在投资公司的时候总是要设置各种各样的保护条款，其中卖掉也是一个常见的term，尤其是保护自己的少数股份的需要。但这个term对于创业者来讲并不一定是件好事情。

假设有一天，你的公司发展并不如意，投资者决定出售，你又不想，甚至于今天的yahoo，作为创始人的你，应该如何面对，Alexander Muse的这篇文章试图对这个问题做一些解释。

How to prevent your investors from selling!

作者：Alexander Muse

http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/wp-content/uploads/2007/12/poison_sign.png如何防止投资人出售你的公司" />One day everything is going along great with your business and your investors decide they want to sell.  You don’t want to give up your personal secretary, the company car or the free Cokes.  Your investors keep talking about getting a better return on their money or some such nonsense, but you are happy with the status quo.  Then one day, POOF! Your investors get a letter from another company who wants to buy the company.  You would do anything to prevent them from selling.  You and your friends still control the board so you have a little time to try to stop the deal from going through.  How do you prevent your investors from selling?

If you are Yahoo! you do your best to screw up your business as fast as possible.  Make yourself so freaking unappealing no one could possibly swallow the poison pills you have taken.  Yahoo began screwing up their business in February by entering into agreements will all current employees that provides 24 months of severance pay if they are terminated.  Once Yahoo’s HR department finished operation foobar, the revenue generating side of the business (ad sales) decided to turn over advertising to the companies #1 competitor, Google!  Next Yahoo decided to find an albatross to hang around their neck, preferably a company that has already destroyed another company.  According to the WSJ, Yahoo is close to completing a deal to acquire AOL from Time Warner.  Time Warner could never swallow AOL and it almost destroyed the company, so it is a perfect fit for a suicidal Yahoo.

Of course, some of Yahoo’s investors are freaking out.  Legg Mason almost coughed up a lung when Microsoft suggested they would lower their bid.  Realizing that Yahoo is on track to ruin their business, investors couldn’t imagine NOT selling to Microsoft.  They would be stuck with an asset that is worth considerably less than it was just a few months ago.  Ironically, Yahoo’s only hope is to be acquired by Microsoft…