Yahoo Acquisitions: The Marissa Mayer Drama
June 22, 2016
The word “all” in “All the Startups Yahoo Bought in the Last Few Years, and What Happened to Them” turned me off. I persisted and worked my way through the shopping list of outfits purchased by Yahoo since the Xoogler seized the steering wheel. Like Hewlett Packard, Yahoo has found itself in the spotlight. HP may have the marvel of the Autonomy acquisition, subsequent write down, and legal dust up crown. But Yahoo has been more profligate on its multi year shopping spree.
The write up points me to this write up, “Here’s What Happened To All 53 of Marissa Mayer’s Yahoo Acquisitions.” Another “all.” Sigh. The upside of the Xoogler on the bridge was:
When she took over in mid-2012, employees were so enthusiastic about her arrival that one even photoshopped her face on Obama-style “hope” posters and hung them up around the company’s headquarters. Mayer did her best to live up to lofty expectations. She deployed quick fixes to solve Yahoo’s morale problems, including expanding parental leave and hiring high-profile celebrities to run the company’s media division.
The downside? I read:
But what’s clear is that the MaVeNS and acquisitions rescue strategy hasn’t been able to save the company from itself, despite Mayer’s protestations that it was successful. It’s worth looking, then, at exactly why these deals were made, and what has happened since.
Yep, PowerPoint fever, which is a variant of Excel spreadsheet fever. The problem is that the digital representations are not reality.
I learned that the Xoogler took these types of decisions:
- Shut down and “gutted” some of the acquisitions
- Rolled some companies into “existing divisions”
- A few companies are still “kicking”; for example, Tumblr.
I recommend that you work through the companies and the brief commentaries.
The way I read “Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer Increased Spending after Secretly Agreeing with Investors to Cut Costs” undermines my confidence in the behavior of Xooglers. I thought ethical behavior was a core Google aptitude. Was I incorrect in this assumption?
What’s evident is that some Xooglers are outstanding PowerPoint types. The Excel expertise seems to be wanting. I assume the Board of Directors were convinced by the Xoogler’s digital confections. Savvy folks.
Stephen E Arnold, June 22, 2016
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