Comments on: With Jerry Yang Gone, What Yahoo Should Do Next

By: Something about Yahoo - GigaOM

Something about Yahoo - GigaOM — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 04:11:59 +0000

[...] With Jerry Yang Gone, What Yahoo should do next? [...]

By: Rob

Rob — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:59:52 +0000

What does Yahoo need in a new CEO? They need someone who is a business and technology person. They also need someone with a strong background in mergers in case Yahoo’s board decides to sell.

The best executive I know with those skills is James Kennedy

By: hana

hana — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 20:27:53 +0000

Yahoo is a solid franchise, and one of the best placed players out there. It would be a huge asset for any media company (or media wannabes like MSFT). I think the most likely buyer is going to be News Corporation, and it would be a solid fit. Yahoo has never been a good technology company but it’s always been a great media company.

Since they can’t do search very well though they should sponsor an open source search engine project, which anybody can use, as long as they have the servers to handle it (or a P2P network). That would probably be more fruitful than relying on their engineers.

By: ResultsON » Blog » Façam suas apostas: quem será o CEO do Yahoo!?

ResultsON » Blog » Façam suas apostas: quem será o CEO do Yahoo!? — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 19:03:00 +0000

[...] Malik, do GigaOM sugere roubar o CEO da HP, Mark Hurd, para dar um up no Yahoo! e superar a Dell, oops, o Google [...]

By: Why Microsoft Should Bid Again — and Yahoo Should Accept - GigaOM

Why Microsoft Should Bid Again — and Yahoo Should Accept - GigaOM — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 16:34:55 +0000

[...] That should become obvious relatively soon, now that co-founder and CEO Jerry Yang has finally stepped aside, removing what many (including Ballmer himself) saw as one of the main barriers to bringing the two [...]

By: Techboy2000

Techboy2000 — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 13:47:59 +0000

Handing over Yahoo to an outsider that has nothing to do with Yahoo’s success (yes, Yahoo is a success) baffles me. Brad Garlinghouse who wrote the ‘Peanut butter memo’ seems to get it and perhaps should be a candidate.

By: noam

noam — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 11:52:10 +0000

They should hire Sarah Palin as CEO…

By: With Jerry Yang Gone, What Yahoo Should Do Next | Om Malik | Voices | AllThingsD

Wed, 19 Nov 2008 08:00:38 +0000

[...] Read the rest of this post Print all_things_di220:http://voices.allthingsd.com/20081119/om-9/ SHARETHIS.addEntry({ title: “With Jerry Yang Gone, What Yahoo Should Do Next”, url: “http://voices.allthingsd.com/20081119/om-9/” }); Sphere Comment Tagged: GigaOm, Jerry Yang, Om Malik, Yahoo | permalink [...]

By: t.k.

t.k. — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 07:21:37 +0000

Yahoo! must focus on its properties that perform and simplify the way it sells ads. A really drastic measure would be to spin off performing properties such as Mail, News, Sports, Flickr etc as separate companies, and structure parent company Yahoo! as a holding company for the spin-offs and for controlling stakes in foriegn companies. That would help to bring more leaders to the top who would be able to focus in their own verticals.

By: Abay

Abay — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:08:35 +0000

Good old Silicon Valley Hubris got to Jerry – yes he is a nice guy, but not a smart executive.

Yahoo has outlived its usefulness and will go the way of Infoseek, Inktomi, and the others. It’s like retail: sites come and go with the times, nothing is forever. Today is about MySpace and Facebook, not Yahoo.

Only a fool would take the job promising a reversal. Sure you can manage Yahoo for years on end, but its best days are behind it.

By: Terry Heaton

Terry Heaton — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 23:05:36 +0000

Any thoughts on how sweeping changes at the top might impact the newspaper consortium?

By: Lost Time Is Not Found Again: Nov. 18, 2008 | MOUTHPIECE Blog

Lost Time Is Not Found Again: Nov. 18, 2008 | MOUTHPIECE Blog — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 18:03:57 +0000

[...] Non-sports: Now that Jerry Yang is gone, where Yahoo! should turn. {Gigamon.} Boy collapses after playing 24 straight hours of World Of Warcraft. {Times [...]

By: Gabriel Law

Gabriel Law — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 17:39:46 +0000

To declare not to hire from within is equivalent to saying (i) a new and correct vision can only be found with an outsider perspective and forced down the organization quickly and (ii) all the good and innovative people are already gone.
Yahoo is still making money. Its fantasy football property, for example, generates more eyeballs than Superbowl (which causes me to wonder why only has Coke Zero as sponsor throughout the whole season). It is just not growing search in the way Wall Street wants. Whereas Google knows more about us DURING each session of search, Yahoo! has one’s entire online portfolio if each of the business units can just work together. In Google, I have to type in a food genre and location to get results; couldn’t Yahoo! just automatically suggest three groups of location (work, home, and if different the current IP location) with just the food genre?
The peanut butter analogy is incorrect in this sense because it is applied and done. A more appropriate analogy in my opinion is that Yahoo management is the spreading knife — it decides in to which jars of condiments it will dip. Sometimes the toast will taste better with peanut butter and strawberry jam — say, Yahoo! Finance and Personal works together to give me a tailor-made health insurance quote.

By: Ted Murphy

Ted Murphy — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 16:29:48 +0000

I actually think this a layup for any new CEO. Just focus the company on keyword search. No money for anything not directly beneficial to keyword search. Sell off the other assets in an orderly manner and use the cash to buy back stock.

And improve the keyword search process and interface — there are a ton of upgrades available there, in terms of functionality, timeliness and openness. Let Jerry Yang focus on that part and bring in someone up top to communicate the vision and do the hardnosed financial crap.

On the brownnosing front, Mr. Malik makes a great point: “resulted in a state of masterful inactivity, masked perhaps as a culture of consensus.” That has to stop. But again that is HR and something most competent executives are capable of (no, Decker is not a competent executive). Set Wang to work on the keyword feature set and hire someone else to do the mechanical stuff.

By: Computer Associates CEO?

Computer Associates CEO? — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:41:40 +0000

As a former shareholder and active Yahoo user I have watched the company erode starting with the ill fated billions it poured into Launch.com and Broadcast.com trying to capture an internet radio monopoly -which never came to fruition and with one simple acquisition Google took the entire online video landscape instead.

How about the current CA (Formerly Computer Associates) Chief John Swainson for the role? Hear me out…

He took over a very battered company the following characteristics:
- no direction
- a portfolio that was all over the place
- a poor balance sheet
- very low investor sentiment
- a mass flight of the most talented core employees
- a tech company with no ready identity (could anyone define what exactly they did??)

Do all these characteristics sound familiar in Yahoo’s case?

Within four years the company he acquired, now named CA has a much more focused portfolio, a very solid balance sheet, over eight quarters strait of beating the street, is getting upgrades from analysts and is making very targeted and solid acquisitions.

Sure Meg Whitman would rally the troops for a period of time, but didn’t they already so that when they replaced Terry with Jerry?

Please note for full disclosure I am currently and employee of CA

By: ronald

ronald — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:26:14 +0000

According to your list what they should do:
Sell to Apple :-).

What I have leaned is. If the top Management of a Valley company starts talking like the middle Management from IBM, take your Money and run. See Yahoo, Sun.