You need to own and exploit a monopoly in order to grow into a true tech heavyweight. Facebook has social (and all the traffic and user data that comes with it), Microsoft has the OS and utilities, Apple has the OS, hardware, and apps, and Google has search and (tbd) Android apps. Unless you monopolize something of extreme value (user data or a platform), you should focus on just making money, although unfortunately Wall Street doesn't value this very highly (see IAC). Yahoo has a bunch of great second and third place properties (search, news, weather, email) but no monopolies, and for this reason even the transition to mobile under MM was unlikely to move the needle for them. If they slimmed down and brought in the right kind of management the core properties could be extremely profitable.
Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Faces Morale Challenge
131–140 of 247 posts
Re: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Faces Morale Challenge
#132Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having watched way too much "House of Lies" where consultants often seem to be brought in to back-up the viewpoint of a given executive and make the case for whatever that person's agenda is...what would such consultants likely be doing in this case in "the real world?" I admittedly haven't had the experience of working with any consultants, so I'm curious for opinions from those who have what happens when they come…
I spent a few years as a management consultant. Consultants are almost never hired to provide truly objective analysis. In most cases, they're hired to "back-up the viewpoint of a given executive". This is done by the executive to hedge the political risk required to go through with their action. They can point to McK when they defend their strategy to the board and then throw them under the bus if things don't pan o…
This is also a large part of why the "Ivy League" is perpetuated. Not because the graduates or the education is special, but because it provides a "stamp" that its alumni can give out to clients to give authority to client decisions and absorb heat from cover clients' mistakes.
Re: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Faces Morale Challenge
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Having watched way too much "House of Lies" where consultants often seem to be brought in to back-up the viewpoint of a given executive and make the case for whatever that person's agenda is...what would such consultants likely be doing in this case in "the real world?" I admittedly haven't had the experience of working with any consultants, so I'm curious for opinions from those who have what happens when they come…
I spent a few years as a management consultant. Consultants are almost never hired to provide truly objective analysis. In most cases, they're hired to "back-up the viewpoint of a given executive". This is done by the executive to hedge the political risk required to go through with their action. They can point to McK when they defend their strategy to the board and then throw them under the bus if things don't pan o…
Couldn't agree with you more on all major points. Let's try the closing analogy one more time, though.
Consultants:entrepreneurs = husbands:Kardashian sisters.
Re: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Faces Morale Challenge
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
Actually, contractually that gets really interesting. Basically, for a contract to be valid both sides have to give something, this is referred to as "consideration". Now, normally, with work-related contracts the consideration is "continuing to employ you", but with senior mgmt (golden parachutes, stock options, etc) I bet the waters are murky.
From what I recall "continuing to employ you" is not legally acceptable consideration, because you had the job before the contract, and therefore you are not getting anything new. If it involves a pay raise, promotion, a bonus, etc, then it can be acceptable. IANAL.
Continued employment is sufficient consideration for some contracts http://www.jacksonlewis.com/publication/continued-employment.... However, I can't imagine that if Yahoo was so desperate to retain its executives that it would fire them if they didn't sign the agreement. I'm guessing that there was some additional incentive offered.
Re: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Faces Morale Challenge
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I haven't come across any other sites that even come close to [sports and finance] on Yahoo! You haven't been able to find any other sites focusing on finance or sports on the internet? To be clear, yahoo does a decent job curating finance and sports sections, but it is extremely trivial to find sites similar to Yahoo. Here are a few, I found: Finance: ======== Marketwatch[0], is very similar to yahoo finance. Owne…
I was pretty sure someone will make a comment like yours. You didn't disappoint. You want to me to go to 3 different sites for Finance when I can get everything at Yahoo! You want me to go to 4 different sites for Sports when I can get everything at Yahoo! Can you get Bleacher Report articles on ESPN? I will suggest comparing Yahoo! Finance and Sports with the sites you mentioned. You might be surprised that most sit…
I think you have a fundamental misunderstanding of how people actually use the web today. "Portal" is an amazing video game and a 1990's buzzword.
Why would anyone rely on a single "portal" for content? A "portal" like Yahoo(!) was relevant when connections were slow and the potential of the internet was still nascent. That was 20 years ago.
These days, just open a new tab with a new site. Open 10 new tabs with 10 different sites. It's not that complicated.
Re: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Faces Morale Challenge
#136You can bypass the paywall with this link: http://bit.ly/1XdzZgO (Google search the original URL in quotes in future) Sounds like she's in a tough spot. You're pretty much forced into a situation of focusing on the good numbers when you're a public company or you'll get beaten up by the shareholders and shorts. So it's difficult to shine sunlight on the bad stuff to disinfect because that's not what public investors…
Saying that Google has search wrapped up today is about like saying that BlackBerry had the smartphone market wrapped up in 2007. The space is ripe for upheaval.
Where exactly do you see search going that Google isn't already super invested in (NLP, speech recognition, Google Now integration)?
Re: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Faces Morale Challenge
#137Google is getting platform locking, much like Microsoft. Even if Yahoo did come out with a world class Docs, or Email, or Youtube, or Blogger, or Sites, or AppEngine - I would still stick with the Google equivalent because I am all connected. I sign into Chrome or an Android device and everything just works and syncs. I am locked into Google and I don't even have a Google+ account.
All Yahoo has to do is commit to no tracking of users and I would switch in a heartbeat.
So create a product that is hard to make money off of and impossible to track how users are using the applications in order to improve them?
Re: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Faces Morale Challenge
#138You can bypass the paywall with this link: http://bit.ly/1XdzZgO (Google search the original URL in quotes in future) Sounds like she's in a tough spot. You're pretty much forced into a situation of focusing on the good numbers when you're a public company or you'll get beaten up by the shareholders and shorts. So it's difficult to shine sunlight on the bad stuff to disinfect because that's not what public investors…
> They relaunched yahoo finance in September and sounds like their users hate the new site
Wha?? I use it daily for the last 10+ years - I despise it, but for some reason there's nothing better afaik. And it would be so easy to make it so much better, no surprise the company is failing.
Re: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Faces Morale Challenge
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
> "I'm just here for the money"...it's disheartening Yaa, how awful...because my landlord accepts a share of my company CEO's "vision", as does my grocer > Widespread cynicism will kill high-tech What a laugh that the heirs, the LP's, the VC's and seeds and angels aren't the cynics, your unhappiness is the twenty-something wage slaves slaving away at all hours building products are now disheartening, because they're…
You're fighting a strawman my friend. I explicitly stated that I was not talking about inequitable distribution of capital in a podunk startup. Indeed, in the context of this, the executives that Mayer would be seeking to incentivize with cash are already in the upper stratosphere of ownership - so given that as a background my slant should have been clear.
Those people, including Mayer herself, are in it for the money and the power/glamour/fame. Look at Mayer -- a Google bigshot who has power over thousands of people at Google, who left because she felt overshadowed by the CEO. She went to Yahoo not because she wanted to do more/bigger/better things -- she could do anything she wanted at Google! -- but because she wanted to be CEO of something.
Re: Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Faces Morale Challenge
#140I feel like Netflix understands how to keep morale high, and that's paying top of market and firing people who don't deserve that pay. Free lunches, massage rooms, etc are all marginally important compared to good pay. Perhaps Yahoo could innovate further by offering private offices. This isn't the panacea for innovation or a large company, but if the goal is to raise morale and hire top talent - I know those two thi…
Or, you know, allow remote work. There are lots of talented programmers that don't live in the SF Bay area.