Is Yahoo Going the Way of AOL?
January 25, 2016
Yahoo hired former Googler Marissa Mayer as its new CEO to turn the company around. The company is headed towards stormy waters again, which could leave only the ship’s hull. Yahoo could sell its main operating business and all that would be left is Yahoo Japan, Alibaba shares, and $5 billion in cash. Mayer would then get the boot, says South China Morning Post in the article, “Yahoo Destined For Tech Graveyard Due To Poor Choice In Chief Executive Officer.”
Yahoo has gone through five CEOs in the past decade and its current shares are trading well below value, making the company only worth at an estimated $2 billion.
Yahoo’s current problems began when the company was formed. Founders Jerry Yang and David Filo were great inventors, but they were inexperienced running a company. Yahoo failed to accept Microsoft’s offer and while it floundered, Google stole the search market.
“Determining the right kind of chief executive for a tech company at a particular stage of development represents the most frustrating and critical issue. The weakness of chief executives with a tech start-up or product background like Mayer is that they try to invent and innovate a large corporation out of a problem and into a breakthrough strategy.”
The article explains that Yahoo needed to be knocked down and then rebuilt from the ground up. A huge movement like that requires more from a tech manager who is only used to positive growth, praise, and giving huge benefits to staff.
This points out that people with different talents are needed to manage a company as well as the importance of a diverse team with varied experience. Some people are meant to invent and work in the tech field, others are meant to be business leaders.
Whitney Grace, January 25, 2016
Sponsored by ArnoldIT.com, publisher of the CyberOSINT monograph
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