She was dealt a tough hand. Very few firms have second lives and very few innovation firms can cost cut to greatness. Motorola is a more frequent outcome than Apple.
Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Interim CEO
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Re: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Interim CEO
#12Yahoo needs someone who can clearly articulate what Yahoo does. There is no "product" to draft behind, just a disjointed set of technologies which individually are great (as someone pointed out, YUI and Hadoop, etc), but holistically don't have any focus. Google had the same problem, but they are now shedding this.
Clearly Joe Stump is ready to step in if need be. His article is down right now, probably to many people trying to see if they offered him the job, but here is the google cache. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TgPIGZf... If I was still working at Yahoo I would be stoked to have this guy as my boss.
Except even if you managed to acquire all those companies, all their key leaders would leave Yahoo in a year to do their own thing.
I mean, do you really think the New York Times staff wants to work for Yahoo! News? Or that Jack Dorsey wants to work for Yahoo! Mobile?
Yahoo can't buy their way out of this mess, IMHO.
Re: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Interim CEO
#13I wonder if Yahoo! lacks the vision of a founder to compare with Gates, Jobs & Woz, Branson, Larry & Sergey, even Zuckerberg?
It's been described as listless and without vision or a clear direction for several years now. Particularly with more macro economic trends, now is a good time for CEOs and business owners to re-engage themselves and their teams with the original vision or intent of their business, to help confirm a new vision moving forward.
I've just never felt that Yahoo! had that baton handed to them by the original founders (I even had to search for their names - Jerry Yang and David Filo). Plenty of companies grow to enormous success without the founder having to drive it, of course, but there's usually some connection that links the CEO to the company's founding principles. Yang is still on the Board I believe - can anyone point me to where his thoughts on the direction might have been shared?
Re: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Interim CEO
#14I used to work at Yahoo during the whole Microsoft debacle. I have to say that this is a disappointing development, namely because it really sounds like the board is giving up on Yahoo, and they will package up Yahoo to the highest bidder. It certainly sounds like the board is getting bored (pun intended) of trying to resuscitate Yahoo and would rather move onto newer and fresher companies with richer rewards. This u…
A Microsoft acquisition looked attractive, but I would argue that a Google acquisition would be far better for both.
Google would foster a culture totally different from Yahoo's, and at the same time thrill the existing Yahoo employees - which means they would stick around. So much opportunity for both.
Microsoft is a great company, but their online businesses are losing money like crazy, and I suspect that many Yahooers would not be super excited about joining Microsoft.
Re: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Interim CEO
#15Yahoo needs someone who can clearly articulate what Yahoo does. There is no "product" to draft behind, just a disjointed set of technologies which individually are great (as someone pointed out, YUI and Hadoop, etc), but holistically don't have any focus. Google had the same problem, but they are now shedding this.
Clearly Joe Stump is ready to step in if need be. His article is down right now, probably to many people trying to see if they offered him the job, but here is the google cache. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TgPIGZf... If I was still working at Yahoo I would be stoked to have this guy as my boss.
Identifying talent is not a substitute for actual vision. Buzz does an excellent job of making that point here:
http://log.scifihifi.com/post/6891792369/i-would-like-to-ann...
Re: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Interim CEO
#16The problem is that Yahoo was born as a product that became obsolete quickly. It has no DNA anymore, it's just a collection of various media services. It's not a computer, or a piece of software, or a social network. It was a directory of web links. A library.
It's doubtful that a Steve Jobs could come back to Yahoo and get it back in touch with its roots. IMHO, their best bet is to sell.
Re: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Interim CEO
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Clearly Joe Stump is ready to step in if need be. His article is down right now, probably to many people trying to see if they offered him the job, but here is the google cache. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TgPIGZf... If I was still working at Yahoo I would be stoked to have this guy as my boss.
Except even if you managed to acquire all those companies, all their key leaders would leave Yahoo in a year to do their own thing. I mean, do you really think the New York Times staff wants to work for Yahoo! News? Or that Jack Dorsey wants to work for Yahoo! Mobile? Yahoo can't buy their way out of this mess, IMHO.
Yea, but if you buy all the companies. They couldn't leave in one year because they would need to earn out there shares.
Re: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Interim CEO
#18Earlier quoted context omitted.
Clearly Joe Stump is ready to step in if need be. His article is down right now, probably to many people trying to see if they offered him the job, but here is the google cache. http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:TgPIGZf... If I was still working at Yahoo I would be stoked to have this guy as my boss.
Identifying talent is not a substitute for actual vision. Buzz does an excellent job of making that point here: http://log.scifihifi.com/post/6891792369/i-would-like-to-ann...
I don't know about that. Aol bought techcrunch and let them go hog wild, that ended up okay.
Re: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Interim CEO
#19The problem is that Yahoo was born as a product that became obsolete quickly. It has no DNA anymore, it's just a collection of various media services. It's not a computer, or a piece of software, or a social network. It was a directory of web links. A library. It's doubtful that a Steve Jobs could come back to Yahoo and get it back in touch with its roots. IMHO, their best bet is to sell.
I'm not so sure about this. The roots of a company run deeper than a product. The original goal of Yahoo! was similar in spirit to Google: help people make sense of the massive amount of information available on the web. They've of course gone in a wild array of directions since then, and I'm not sure they had as long a view of the web as Google did, but I'd be surprised if the founders don't have a good number of strong views they've held about how things should work online since the beginning. It remains to be seen if they can tap into the creative energy and focus that led Yahoo! to its early success.
Re: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Interim CEO
#20I wonder if Yahoo! needs old Jerry Yang (the one with fire in his belly in his early days) back as Twitter did with Jack Dorsey.