[qi:004] Jerry Yang, the new CEO (and cofounder) of Yahoo during a conference call with analysts following Yahoo’s lackluster Q2 2007 earnings said he is going to take a 100 days to review the entire operation. “There will be no sacred cows and we need to move quickly,” he said. Am I the only one who is wondering why he needs 100 days to review the business. Is the mess that bad, that it needs a 3-month review. Many of these problems (and problem products) have been developing for a while and he has been part of the company for a long time.
The single biggest problem Yahoo has on its hands: the advertising community has a perception of Yahoo being a laggard, and are not enamored by the great white hope, Panama. These match the findings of a study conducted by RBC Capital Markets & SearchIgnite which found that large branded advertisers continue to see better ROI on Google. The graphic says it all!
That’s all? Nice 5 sentence post
I’m going to just get to the point, should I sell Yahoo shares now?
I like Yahoo – they’re still the king when it comes to email members and as the number one destination on the Net, but what can they do, give search back to Google? Then there’s Facebook and Myspace, all cutting in on Yahoo’s email users and page views.
Is there something in the works that will take a shot at Google? Will they do mobile better than Google?
Yahoo does have local search, maybe they could buy Yelp and get into that space more, content seems to be something they are good at, collecting it and showing it.
What about doing something with Amazon or eBay. I love Amazon’s ability to recommend books and items to you over time, based on your purchases. I think that’s a great aspect of the Net that will take shape. Capturing the collective wisdom of a wide range of users and also your own personal tastes to give you things you want…I’m rambling now.
Yang needs this much time to figure out a company he’s the founder of?!?! What the hell was he doing during all those meetings with Terry and Dan??
There’s a dismal lack of leadership at Big Purple, and neither Jerry nor Sue (the woman who spent $6B on stock buybacks, trying to keep a stock afloat, while competitors were making strategic acquisitions) can fill that role.
The sadder thing is that you can’t just look around the industry and pick someone out who can turn that ship around. Culture in firms like this has a lot to do with having created, or at least “grown up” with the company. If the two founders (Jerry & Dave) are floundering for a vision and strength to lead, there’s little hope for a turnaround from within. Smells like the only way up is out – time to merge / be acquired.
Maybe that “redefinition of their arrangement” with AT&T should be just that – a merger. Given AT&T’s iPhone position, and Y!’s pursuit of that platform (the email deal, the iPhone widgets, etc.), I can imagine people internally thinking this way.
I’m no CEO of a multi-million dollar company. But I would say its challenging. Is 3 mths too long? I’m not sure. Everyone agrees that Yahoo! has lots of catching up to do and from Jerry’s press release, it seems like he also has absolutely no idea what to do. As such, 3mths may be long, but Yahoo! is probably gonna need it with the changes it is going through and the huge gap it needs to fill.
This guy is a kid. This is a big company that needs a real CEO.
That is why you are a reporter running a blog and not a founder of yahoo…
Ouch, tough crowd.
As I read that this morning in the Times, I thought the exact same thing. I guess Yahoo has become that bureaucratic that they need the 90 day review – which in and of itself is a bad sign. Sounds more like an automobile turnaround…
The 90 days might well be the development time needed for a completely new business model to be constructed under the guise of a review, a la the Constitutional Convention.
http://mikeelliottsblog.wordpress.com
It seems to me he is just rephrasing some platitudes he read somewhere in a business magazine. No thoughts of his own, no strategy just corporate hot air.
Doesn’t look good.
Even analysts wake up to that and they normally love hot air.
See, on news.com.com:
Still no cure for what ails Yahoo
I think Yang is right.
He needs to first evaluate what needs to be done. And not move too quickly.
Maybe he should try something like Michael Dell and Ideastorm. Find out what customers are thinking.
it makes no sense to even criticize Jerry Yang for taking 3 months on this – if you have run a busienss before, you would know. Even if Jerry knows exactly what to do at the moment he took the job, just getting some key peronnel to understand, appreciate and support his strategy will take more than 3 months.
100 days is cover. Even if he started making changes on day one, you won’t see any immediate results. It’ll take time and he’s just giving Wall Street a heads up to chill for a bit. Part of the problem is company culture which will take some time to alter and few businesses (not even Google) can turn on a dime. From friends inside the company, morale has improved and folks who thought about bailing are no longer mulling such a move. That’s a good first step. Let’s hope it continues, and the company is able to lure good people to help resurrect the company’s fortunes.
I’ve been polling current and ex-yahoos (I’m one myself), and they all– whether they believe in Jerry or not– worry that the deep and violent cuts will not be made. Yahoo put in many levels of hierarchy, suffered title inflation, and didn’t pull overture under ironfisted search chief Jeff Weiner,letting it flouder unconnected to the business that depended on it.
Marc Andreensen had a blog post that listed exactly what Yahoo has to do, and I hear it’s getting circulated around by the staff. I hope it bubbles up to Jerry, and he has the courage to do what it calls for: http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/07/the-pmarca-gu-1.html
Well, look all these experts about running a company. I bet you none of you guys have any idea how to run any company, it is very easy to look from the outside and point fingers. I want to know how many of you guys invented or founded anything in the last five years.
Peace and be part of the solution. Don’t be a hater. :))