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Comment by mathattack | Hacker News Reader

I don't like when people say, "Just look at the stock price." The stock benefit came from not undoing the work of her predecessors who purchased Ali Baba. The article does jump into this later.

Turnarounds take a while, and this is indeed Step 1. I can't think of another "It" company that returned to greatness. Perhaps AOL is the closes. (For those who argue for Apple, I don't think it was the "It" company the first time around)

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I don't think yahoo was ever really an 'it' company...they were (maybe) an 'it stock', but that's a who nother ball of wax. At the company level, in terms of having a "category killer" product, they never had one.

In order for Yahoo to ever right the ship, that is what they need. They need to become indispensible for either offering something unqiue or something of unqiue value.

Their investment in alibaba was close to that...both unique to investors and great value...where else could you a private equity stake in a huge chineese start-up?

The issue there was the "killer product" was a specialized financial asset with a finite life. This is distinct from something with an evergreen consumer service or product that will be monetizable over the long run.

The task for the CEO is can take the capirtal on hand and start building good (evergreen) products?

If nothing else she should be given (retain) some capital and another 3 years before making a final judgement. At that stage, take a look at the pipleline and if there is nothing in it...that will be a signal.

Yahoo right now is like a pharma company which had a blockbuster come off of patent...its all about the ability to re-plenish the pipeline...the profits that happened previously are nearly irrelevant except for providing the position/capital to recruit people for the next round of product development.

I think yahoo's 'it product' has been their fantasy football offering. It has been the crowd favorite for many years, and neglected for a majority of that.

I would have agreed until this last round of "we changed it, you'll like it, and we won't change it back" has my group looking for a different league host for the first time.

What did they change, if you don't mind my asking? I've been using it for two seasons now, and haven't noticed anything too annoying, although I have been in public leagues only so far.

Does a "media" company ever had an "it" (killer-product/cash cow) long-term product?

Yahoo! is not a software company (yet).

Comparing Yahoo! against Google, Microsoft, or Apple seems like comparing NBC/ABC/Fox againt those 3 no/

It used to be a software company - it was Google before Google. I think the media distinction is a little false.

Several media companies have had long term products: The Big 3 networks pre-cable, HBO, Dreamworks...

They own (scarce) rights to broad-band spectrum.

> At the company level, in terms of having a "category killer" product, they never had one.

Yahoo's Directory and Search offerings were category-defining once upon a time, weren't they?

Directory yes, search no.

uhhh.. yahoo mail? for a while years ahead of the competition and even today still one of the best mail services around

I'm not sure how you could argue Apple wasn't an 'it' company. Obviously that's a pretty subjective term but not only did they have a revolutionary product but their IPO was a pretty big deal as well. From the Apple Wikipedia article:

On December 12, 1980, Apple went public at $22 per share,[30] generating more capital than any IPO since Ford Motor Company in 1956 and instantly creating more millionaires (about 300) than any company in history.[31]

Fair enough. I've been an Apple fan for a LONG time, and have always felt it was the alternative, and never the main player. For a long time it seemed like it was just a few bad quarters from selling to IBM. It seems like the "It" companies were the ones that owned their markets.

In defense of your positions, in the early 90s, many of the most talented engineers that I knew flocked to Apple. They left later in the decade, and then returned post-bubble.

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