Yang To Step Down As Yahoo CEO
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
Appropriate firm given Yahoo's recent struggles. Sorry- couldn't help it.
A lot of people blame Yang for Yahoo's troubles. Some say his emotions got in the way of making a rational decision when Microsoft came knocking. The reality is that Yahoo is just not the product it used to be and they are slightly behind the curve now instead of ahead of it. Kind of sad really- Yahoo was my first search engine. I avoided using Google for a long time but eventually, like everyone else, I relented.
Another Web 1.0 Titan struggling to thrive in the new millennium.
When I said their product isn't the same I meant they are no longer the main info collectors of the web. When considered on the international stage they are still players, however, they have a downward trajectory right now- Google is gaining on them and has all of the momentum.
Consider this: Yahoo is #1 in the WORLD based on traffic (Alexa.com). But nobody will touch their stock? The writing is on the wall. Like I said, there is a downward trajectory there. Good companies find a way to leverage a #1 ranking into dollars and dominance. Floundering companies find a way to allow their stock to drop below 15 bucks while another company sets the standard for the info collection industry (Google).
to be fair, they have in a sense.
the company is profitable. they have cash in the bank. but the writing is on the wall, google has become completely dominant in ads. yahoo has tried to reverse this but google has just taken more share. web ads are a winner-take-all economy...it doesn't look good for anyone going head-to-head with google
yahoo won't go under, but its days as an independent company are likely numbered
Yahoo does not need to cut costs. Cashflow is fine in the company. Cutting costs would be silly at this junction - it does nothing at all to address the problem.
It's like a guy who gets his leg cut off, and your solution is to bind the leg. Yes, that helps, but he'll still die if you don't actually fix the wound.
Search ads on Yahoo are great, however.
Some brilliant stuff there.
What do you suggest they should do for their hypothetical second shot?
So where does the buck stop then, if not with Yang?
I don't think Microsoft will come in on this one. I really think Murdoch is much more likely, no one is saying it but a Yahoo/MySpace merger is something that scares me.
Could Yahoo and Facebook join forces? Maybe but I don't see a company which is yet to be profitable as being able to buy a financially struggling behemoth.
And Google + Yahoo = anti-trust suit.
So we're left with who can replace Yang? To be honest, I fully expect it to be someone I've /never/ heard of.
AOL -"Bebo", "TMZ", "Truveo",
YAHOO - "Del.icio.us", "Yahoo", "Flickr", "OneSearch", "alibaba"
News Corp - "Myspace", "Sky", "FX"
Microsoft - Actually, most of these sound semi normal. However, the fact that I also cant think of any of their brands is an entirely different problem.
After all, the board is the one who asked Jerry back and also had the power to audit Jerry's decisions.
To show good judgment, they should fire themselves first.
Google know one thing, we want to keep people going online, that's there main theme. If people are online they exposed to our adds, done deal.
Yahoo! didn't had that approach they lack the google buzz, the desire that they cause you to spend ridicules time using the net
I believe that it was the Yang responsibility, the man at the top leads the direction of the organisation. It looks like he was too busy making sure Yahoo! will stay independent, cool company instead of making it a profitable business,
Ah yes, that must have been it.
It was like yahoo hired the flair manager from office space as an interior designer. Like they only hired the miserable, desperate people who confuse collecting trolls in your cubicle with being happy. In such a mediocre environment, how can you think or expect anything truly good to happen?
there isn't one. google's momentum in taking marketshare hasn't diminished one bit. yahoo has less share in ad dollars then they did two years ago. there really isn't much a new ceo can do to reverse that.
from a shareholder perspective, the msft deal was a no-brainer. especially at today's trading range. yhoo isn't going back to the 34 msft offered them anytime in the next five years. the next ceo will do their best to get something going again
Anyway, I don't think it's a matter of catching up to Google in search. It's a matter of finding a business model that makes them money. For Yahoo still to be looking for one is kinda like a 53 year old hanging out in a Uni bar all day & getting excited about Oweek.
i strongly disagree. indeed the only party that didn't see the msft deal as a no-brainer were in management and the board.
But how much of that is really a management/leadership issue? How much is to do with the fact that Yahoo has been waiting for page views to equal money for a long time now.
People suggest that they should do X with their product Y, supposedly bringing them in tens of millions A drop in the ocean. Or that they need to do Q to get ahead of G! But as a small or local advertiser (the G! secret sauce), using panama is something you do at considerable hassle to get the last 10% of business. Like mining sandy Candian oil.
It's not clear what Yahoo is for, what it does or what it's business model is. That is part of their definition.
someone who has no issues with cleaning house. frankly they should have gone with an axeman after semel in order to clean up the company.
you bring in the axeman, let him cut for a year until the forest is clear of deadwood and the remaining trees are in nice neat rows, you give him a $10 million golden parachute, send him on his way, and start trying to build something out of the good material left. if they had done this after semel, yahoo might be in a better place today.
i wonder if filo and ash patel will leave also...frankly it might do good to completely clean house of all the old guard and start with a fresh team with no alliances or turf issues.
you can be sure that selling to microsoft will be put back on the table for the next ceo.
1) Much of their good talent has quit 2) They are laying off tons of people anyways
Time to just fire everyone and sell off the company.
It's not like Microsoft has a great (or even good) history of web-based anything.
They've got decent properties in that area, and Google's weak anywhere they can't use their index or relevance ranking abilities.
the next ceo really only has one job - fire half the workforce and try to bring ballmer back to the table.