[qi:033] Guess who stopped by to give Yahooligans a little pep talk? Steve Jobs! He told the gathering of 300-odd Yahoo (YHOO) vice presidents that they can do anything. The company with one of the largest Internet user bases can do and achieve anything, he apparently told them. (I am channeling a handful of VPs.) He talked about how Apple (AAPL) was down on its luck and made a comeback. Yahooligans were pretty inspired! Now if they made more of their products Mac friendly! More on Steve Jobs’s new gig as motivational speaker later. I am late for my own birthday party! So what’s new!
Update: Kara Swisher has an updated report from the meeting. Apparently it went well, though issues of execution still remain.
Happy Birthday, Om!
steve jobs is probably right.
and doing away with BUs will go a long way to allow mgr.s to take risks and be creative.
Happy Birthday, Om. Hope you have a wonderful birthday. Look forward to catching up live soon.
300 vice presidents…
It boggles the mind. No wonder they can’t get anything done any more.
30 would be too many. A dozen or so would be right.
I was wondering why everyone at Yahoo on LinkedIn was a VP.
It’s like a financial institution: The only three job titles are Preisdent, VP, and janitor.
Happy birthday, Om. We’ll have to get you up north of the 49th parallel one of these days.
300 VP…OMG
yhoo has become a government company. If you go to San Jose city or Washington DC city or China or India you can see government departments with massive managers doing nothing.
Fire the VP’s and managers and cut out the red tape – this is the medicine yhoo needs.
Happy b-day, Om!
Happy Birthday Young Man 🙂
Happy Birthday OM!
Happy Birthday OM. Cheers.
Well, at least if things go sour at Apple, Steve has a back up gig! 🙂 He is a great speaker and presenter. Oh, and Happy Birthday Om!
Well, if you have to get a motivational speaker, better Steve Jobs than any of the “business gurus” who spout the same-old business punditry by the earful. You know, “do the Right thing at the Right time blah blah”.
On the more serious note, Yahoo does have a tremendous user base for apps like email, etc. Now if only they’d get the shackles off of their innovators.
BTW, Happy B-day Om!
Happy B-day Om. I think you’re awesome!
happy bday Om!!
VP is just the name of a rank. If it had said “manager”, 300 wouldn’t have sounded like a lot. (happy birthday, Om)
Feliz Cumpleaños Señor Om!
300 VPs makes sense for Yahoo! Does that mean they have 30 Executive VPs?
Smells like HP before Hurd came along.
300 VPs? 280 VPs too many. Time for cutting, I think
the chance of yahoo cutting down the number of vps is zero. they are obsessed with big-company culture, as is any organization that attracts so much mediocre talent. jerry is a nice guy at heart and he doesn’t have it in him to oil up the chainsaw. really, i would have loved to have seen an “al dunlap” type come in between terry and jerry and maybe take six months to just kill everything that walks, take a $10 million payout, and leave jerry with a properly culled herd to grow. yahoo desperately needed an interim leader who did not care about respect and admiration because their only task was to vaporize losers and then leave. what has happened in the interim is a anti-culling – most of the best people are leaving of their own will instead of the worst being removed against theirs. people can’t take it anymore, they’re just walking away.
its not hopeless. their core sites are still decent. they are strong in asia. they are a necessary foil to google in the ad space. what remains to be seen is if jerry can make tough decisions.
Semel brought in Tom Cruise to motivate.
Yang brings in Steve Jobs.
Advantage: Yang
Unfortunately, Yahoo! doesn’t haven’t visionaries like Apple does with Steve Jobs, especially with the likes of Brad Garlinghouse. Jerry & David are decent guys, but I wouldn’t necessarily classify them as “Steve Jobs”
As for VP’s at Yahoo! – there is massive title inflation at Yahoo! compared to other companies in the software/industry similar in size, revenue or profitability. As someone had mentioned: “I was wondering why everyone at Yahoo on LinkedIn was a VP” – take a look at the experience level and compare that with a VP at Google, VMWare, Oracle, Intel, Adobe, eBay, Microsoft, etc… Not to say that experience is everything, but it does count for something!
It must have been great to listen to Steve Jobs. He is one the most amazing motivational speakers! I had heard his speech at Stanford and was completely moved! I think its a great job opportunity for Steve Jobs to speak as a motivational lecturer, if and when he decides to retire from Apple!! 😉
First, happy birthday, Om.
Your blog continues to be a unique work of excellence and unsurpassed joy to read.
I wondering what Steve Jobs was up to by giving that pep talk to the Yahooligans?
Is he testing the water? Checking them out for a possible partnership? Is that it?
Steve is a very clever businessman, the teflon don of high tech industry.
More success to him
mmm….i smell a little jealously here.
how many posters here currently or at one tmie or another once had the desire for a vp title????
i certainly wouldn’t expect anyone to openly admit that they wished for a nicer title….but the undeniable truth about human beings is that everyone has secret hopes and fears….and titles are not an uncommon one.
be honest with yourself. only you will know. lol.
Happy Birthday!
Apple needs a strong Yahoo and a Microsoft. It’s nothing but a big chess game. If either totally fails then someone else will fill the void. At the very least they know their competitors. A new company may bring something to the table they are not quite ready for!
I must say that Steve Jobs is a powerful motivational speaker. He has every enthusiasm of all his speeches and that’s what I really liked him.
-Jan
No company with a following is down for long unless they accept that fate. This is especially true for Yahoo.