The CEO Of Yammer (Which Was Acquired By Microsoft) Calls Apple 'The Dumbest Company'

Screenshot

On Twitter, lots of people have lots of opinions about Apple's decision to buy Beats for $3.2 billion.

It's a pretty fun place to be if you're interested in gorging yourself on chatter about this pretty stunning deal.

Marc Andreessen, venture capitalist at Andreessen Horowitz, has been on a tear, and he's largely positive about the deal. This is no surprise, he's positive about most things involving technology.

He's been defending Apple's decision to buy Beats, telling us over Twitter, "People in our industry have been crapping all over Beats from the day they started. Meanwhile, they've become phenomenally successful. I don't think it was an accident."

However, others in the industry not quite as enthusiastic.

ScreenshotDavid Sacks, the CEO of Yammer, which sold to Microsoft for $1.2 billion, tweeted, "How is tech's most valuable company also its dumbest?" (This tweet was favorited by a few VCs, we should note. Although favs done necessarily equal endorsements.)

That was in response to the news that Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine are reportedly going to be senior executives at Apple.

Sacks followed up by saying, "I really like my Beats, but headphones are rapidly getting commoditized. No strategic value here."

These tweets sort of summarize the polarizing debate around what is still an unofficial deal.

On the one hand, this is a low-cost, low-risk deal. But, it's high profile because Apple is going to take on celebrities and a popular independent brand.

It's unlike anything Apple has ever tried in the past.

But, like Andreessen has been tweeting all day, just because it's never been done before doesn't mean it's wrong to try now.

After all, there was a time when people thought Apple had lost its mind for going into retail. And the iPad was considered a big, boring iPod Touch.

For years people have misunderstood, and underestimated Apple.

It's happening again with Beats. Will the end result be the same?