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Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Interim CEO

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Re: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Interim CEO

#21

Post by cpeterso »

blantonl wrote: post #14
steve8918 wrote: post #9

I 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 Yaho…

What would Google gain from acquiring Yahoo? Yahoo has little search technology of its own and many services that overlap with existing Google services.

I think Yahoo's properties (and users) might be a better fit with Facebook.

Re: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Interim CEO

#22

Post by danilocampos »

yangtheman wrote: post #20

I 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.

Yang already had his shot at a Jobs-like return and he botched it miserably. Worst of all, he messed up Yahoo's chance for an acquisition, which at this point seems like the only way it can actually generate some value.

Re: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Interim CEO

#23

Post by dpark »

JacobAldridge wrote: post #13

I 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 con…

Yang already tried the CEO role a couple of times. He was generally regarded as ineffective. He also sat on the board of Alibaba when the Alipay scandal went down. I don't honestly think he's where to look for the future of Yahoo. I'm not sure that he has a real vision for Yahoo.

Yahoo's issue is that they have no overall direction. They have some great assets in terms of employees as well as online properties. But what exactly does Yahoo do? They aren't a search engine. They aren't really a news site. They talk a lot about mobile, but don't seem to have a meaningful presence. They talk about local, but I'm not even sure what that means, and in any case they don't actually seem to be doing anything meaningful there. (You can't claim to be "local" and have such broken maps.) They seem mostly to be an advertising company, but they don't really identify as such.

They need to figure out what it is that they do, or at least what they want to do, and pursue that aggressively. Otherwise I fear they'll continue on their aimless path.

Re: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Interim CEO

#24

Post by blantonl »

cpeterso wrote: post #21
blantonl wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Yaho…

What would Google gain from acquiring Yahoo? Yahoo has little search technology of its own and many services that overlap with existing Google services. I think Yahoo's properties (and users) might be a better fit with Facebook.

For one, Yahoo would obtain significant talent. And they would gain an enormous amount of users that use Yahoo's services.

I'm curious, why do you think Yahoo's properties would be a better fit with Facebook?

Re: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Interim CEO

#25

Post by danilocampos »

JacobAldridge wrote: post #13

I 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 con…

Don't forget – Jerry Yang actually returned to Yahoo! for a period. And completely fucked the dog, screwing up a potential acquisition and being replaced by Bartz. Say what we will about Valleywag, they covered this period pretty well:

BSing the troops:

http://gawker.com/valleywag/tech/yahoo/jerry-yangs-fireside-...

Ballmer writing a polite letter killing the acquisition prospects:

http://gawker.com/386898/

"Hey guys, uh, Ballmer's very public proclamations notwithstanding, Microsoft didn't actually want to buy us:"

http://uk.gawker.com/5020835/yahoo-ceo-tries-to-convince-sha...

Re: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Interim CEO

#26

Post by dpark »

voidfiles wrote: post #6
ethank wrote: post #4

Yahoo 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.

Ah, yes. The guy who doesn't understand the difference between market cap and cash on hand. It'd be awesome to have him as your boss, so you could witness first hand what it looks like when incompetent leadership takes a company from $12.50 per share to $0.

Re: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Interim CEO

#27

Post by ary »

blantonl wrote: post #24
cpeterso wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would Google gain from acquiring Yahoo? Yahoo has little search technology of its own and many services that overlap with existing Google services. I think Yahoo's properties (and users) might be a better fit with Facebook.

For one, Yahoo would obtain significant talent. And they would gain an enormous amount of users that use Yahoo's services. I'm curious, why do you think Yahoo's properties would be a better fit with Facebook?

Why would Google buy Yahoo so that Yahoo could obtain Google's talent? There is no way Google would water down its engineering pool with Yahoo's engineering staff.

Re: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Interim CEO

#28

Post by gcb »

danilocampos wrote: post #25
JacobAldridge wrote: post #13

I 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 con…

Don't forget – Jerry Yang actually returned to Yahoo! for a period. And completely fucked the dog, screwing up a potential acquisition and being replaced by Bartz. Say what we will about Valleywag, they covered this period pretty well: BSing the troops: http://gawker.com/valleywag/tech/yahoo/jerry-yangs-fireside-... Ballmer writing a polite letter killing the acquisition prospects: http://gawker.com/386898/ "Hey guys…

implying microsoft acquisition of a big competitor is a good thing.

Re: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Interim CEO

#29

Post by mynameishere »

gcb wrote: post #28
danilocampos wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget – Jerry Yang actually returned to Yahoo! for a period. And completely fucked the dog, screwing up a potential acquisition and being replaced by Bartz. Say what we will about Valleywag, they covered this period pretty well: BSing the troops: http://gawker.com/valleywag/tech/yahoo/jerry-yangs-fireside-... Ballmer writing a polite letter killing the acquisition prospects: http://gawker.com/386898/ "Hey guys…

implying microsoft acquisition of a big competitor is a good thing.

He screwed the company's owners out of many millions of dollars. Microsoft may well have killed and gutted the fish, but the CEO's responsibility is to the shareholders.

Re: Carol Bartz Out at Yahoo; CFO Interim CEO

#30

Post by flocial »

I think the greatest example of what Yahoo! could have been is Yahoo! Japan. They own the auction space and as part of the juggernaut SoftBank group pretty much own a big part of the space (even more if you count the spun off Soft Bank Investments).

It's sad that lack of vision and truly ingrained technical innovation prevented the company from truly realizing the advantages of being a first mover in the space but they sure had a nice run for what started as a collection of links.

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