Is Yahoo Is Like a 10 Year Old Rescued Boxer?

April 23, 2015

Yahoo is a tired old girl much like my 10 year old boxer. Some days Tess chases a butterfly or bird. She takes five or six steps and then flops down to catch her breath. Other days, Tess just naps and lets the hectic high tech world of Harrod’s Creek drift past her.

Yahoo is like Tess.

I read “Yahoo’s Mayer Buys Herself More Time.” Hiring a Xoogler to run a giant company is not a sure fire management move destined to deliver success. Some Xooglers do okay for themselves away from the quirky, attention deficit disorder, and entitlement charged world of Google. Others struggle.

This Bloomberg story seems to highlight a candidate for a business school case study. I can visualize the opening sentence now: “Marissa Mayer looked up from her tidy pile of Yahoo home page redesigns to learn from her new assistant to the assistant to the assistant vice president that she was one hour late for her 9 am meeting with the heads of ABC, CBS, and NBC…”

Back to the real world of hard hitting journalism. The article reported:

Mayer has proven she has the skill to get what she wants from adversaries, allies and partners. But her negotiation with Wall Street is her riskiest yet. She’s painting herself into a corner if her turnaround strategy fails. If it does, she will have shrunk Yahoo down to a size that attracts an aggressive buyer.

Perhaps the Xoogler at AOL will buy Yahoo? One plus one equals three for some Xoogler fans. I don’t care. I am more interested in the great new world of Yahoo search. Yikes, I have to take Tess for a short walk. She is a tired girl and needs special consideration. Just like Yahoo.

Stephen E Arnold, April 24, 2015

Comments

Comments are closed.

  • Archives

  • Recent Posts

  • Meta