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Yahoo CEO apologizes in memo, board meets

reuters.com

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Re: Yahoo CEO apologizes in memo, board meets

#3

Post by SoftwareMaven »

I really don't understand what Loeb is doing here. At this point in Thompson's career, whether he has a CS degree or not just seems completely immaterial. I can appreciate the "trust" issue, but Yahoo is in such a bad place that distracting the executive team even more seems like a really bad idea.

The only thing that makes sense to me is that Loeb has his own candidate he wants in the top spot, so he's going to torpedo anybody he can to get that person there.

Re: Yahoo CEO apologizes in memo, board meets

#4

Post by jizzard »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #3

I really don't understand what Loeb is doing here. At this point in Thompson's career, whether he has a CS degree or not just seems completely immaterial. I can appreciate the "trust" issue, but Yahoo is in such a bad place that distracting the executive team even more seems like a really bad idea. The only thing that makes sense to me is that Loeb has his own candidate he wants in the top spot, so he's going to torp…

"Loeb, chief executive of hedge fund Third Point, which holds 5.8 percent of Yahoo's shares"

"Yahoo, whose revenue slid by more than a fifth last year"

Loeb might just be looking for a scapegoat.

Re: Yahoo CEO apologizes in memo, board meets

#5

Post by soupboy »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #3

I really don't understand what Loeb is doing here. At this point in Thompson's career, whether he has a CS degree or not just seems completely immaterial. I can appreciate the "trust" issue, but Yahoo is in such a bad place that distracting the executive team even more seems like a really bad idea. The only thing that makes sense to me is that Loeb has his own candidate he wants in the top spot, so he's going to torp…

He wants control of the board. And at this point, he probably does not care much about the executive team or the stock price. The lower it goes, the more he can buy and thus put even more pressure to get his people on the board.

Re: Yahoo CEO apologizes in memo, board meets

#7

Post by SoftwareMaven »

soupboy wrote: post #5
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #3

I really don't understand what Loeb is doing here. At this point in Thompson's career, whether he has a CS degree or not just seems completely immaterial. I can appreciate the "trust" issue, but Yahoo is in such a bad place that distracting the executive team even more seems like a really bad idea. The only thing that makes sense to me is that Loeb has his own candidate he wants in the top spot, so he's going to torp…

He wants control of the board. And at this point, he probably does not care much about the executive team or the stock price. The lower it goes, the more he can buy and thus put even more pressure to get his people on the board.

To what end? Does he think he can run the company better? Of course, given some of the decisions that have come out of Yahoo, he might be able to.

Re: Yahoo CEO apologizes in memo, board meets

#8

Post by qty899 »

jizzard wrote: post #4
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #3

I really don't understand what Loeb is doing here. At this point in Thompson's career, whether he has a CS degree or not just seems completely immaterial. I can appreciate the "trust" issue, but Yahoo is in such a bad place that distracting the executive team even more seems like a really bad idea. The only thing that makes sense to me is that Loeb has his own candidate he wants in the top spot, so he's going to torp…

"Loeb, chief executive of hedge fund Third Point, which holds 5.8 percent of Yahoo's shares" "Yahoo, whose revenue slid by more than a fifth last year" Loeb might just be looking for a scapegoat.

I'm not sure what you're implying. He doesn't run Yahoo. He makes no managerial decisions. He doesn't even sit on Yahoo's board.

Re: Yahoo CEO apologizes in memo, board meets

#9

Post by zbuc »

Does anyone have a copy of the full memo?

The snippets posted in the article didn't make it sound like an apology at all -- more of an "I'm sorry people were so upset about this, but let's forget it." No real admission of guilt or explanation of why he did it or anything. There very well may have been in the "extended memo" though, I'd be curious to see it.

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