4 ms·

It depends on who is trying to resurrect it: Marissa Meyer or Steve Jobs. Imagine a reality show: Jobs or Musk in 2010 were tasked to turn Yahoo around, and th

by cft 11y ago

It depends on who is trying to resurrect it: Marissa Meyer or Steve Jobs. Imagine a reality show: Jobs or Musk in 2010 were tasked to turn Yahoo around, and the rules were that they would only have access to Yahoo's internal resources and cash. I would bet with my money buying Yahoo stock that they would reverse the curves.

TheCowboy 11y ago
Steve Jobs and Elon Musk each had/have a different focus and drive to achieve different goals that probably have little overlap with Yahoo. They might see their best course of action as immediately resigning after taking a survey of the company, and going on to start a different company. I don't believe that if you just throw enough smart managers at the top of a hierarchy, then eventually it will spit out gold. If anything, that can be problematic. Yahoo, in its current large size, simply may not have the latitude to pivot to the degree required as a publicly traded company, since anything any CEO attempts will draw the ire of activist shareholders. Any major change becomes a large political endeavor.
- cft 11y ago
  Yahoo had one viable product: Yahoo mail. Instead of botching it, in 2010 they had a chance to make the best Android/iOS email/IM client by throwing a lot of weight behind it. The founders of WhatsApp were from Yahoo after all.
copperx 11y ago
Why Musk? His companies aren't profitable.
- profeta 11y ago
  Musk is bold and not afraid to invest aggressively. but he goes for easy pickings that are encumbered in conflicting laws, which he mostly ignore. He would curl up and cry at yahoo.
visakanv 11y ago
> Jobs or Musk in 2010 were tasked to turn Yahoo around Assuming either of them was actually given the mandate to do so by the board of directors, etc, I imagine they'd fire like 50-80% of the staff, get rid of anything that's not profitable, and produce one highly refined product at a time, something that hasn't been done well before. Source: Am both a Jobs and Musk fanboy and have done an unhealthy amount of reading about their histories and decision-making. I particular like this video of Jobs at NeXT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNfRgSlhIW0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNfRgSlhIW0
- sireat 11y ago
  That was a really good video and I say that as someone who is no fan of Jobs. Did NEXT manage to execute the plan and sell 50k workstations in 1991?
  - tim333 11y ago
    Seems not - from Wikipedia "The NeXT computers experienced relatively limited sales, with estimates of about 50,000 units shipped in total" "NeXT withdrew from the hardware business in 1993 " So I'm guessing more like 20k.
- codexjourneys 11y ago
  Along these lines, here's an interesting quote about Steve Jobs' focus from a documentary photographer who had access to NeXT: "...it seems to me that, in general terms for Steve, he was so passionate about the goal and trying to invent something impossible that everyone had to be on this mission to Mars, and if you weren’t on the mission you didn’t need to be here. It was really a focused approach, so it wasn’t about me or you or hard feelings or anyone. It was about the thing and making the thing better." Read more at: http://nextshark.com/doug-menuez-who-spent-3-years-with-steve-jobs-reveals-what-he-was-like/#rmns http://nextshark.com/doug-menuez-who-spent-3-years-with-stev...
nostrademons 11y ago
"When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact." -- Warren Buffett I really doubt either Steve Jobs or Elon Musk could turn Yahoo around. With Jobs's Apple turnaround, he had the advantage of sharing (creating, really) Apple's cultural DNA; he didn't need to "turn around" a company, he needed to cut the fat and refocus it so it could do what it was doing a lot better. Elon Musk has never run a turnaround; his companies have certainly encountered difficulties, but it's easier to take a new organization with a strong mission and make it work than to take an old, sclerotic organization in a market that doesn't exist anymore and somehow make it relevant again.

by cft 11y ago

TheCowboy 11y ago

Steve Jobs and Elon Musk each had/have a different focus and drive to achieve different goals that probably have little overlap with Yahoo. They might see their best course of action as immediately resigning after taking a survey of the company, and going on to start a different company. I don't believe that if you just throw enough smart managers at the top of a hierarchy, then eventually it will spit out gold. If anything, that can be problematic. Yahoo, in its current large size, simply may not have the latitude to pivot to the degree required as a publicly traded company, since anything any CEO attempts will draw the ire of activist shareholders. Any major change becomes a large political endeavor.

cft 11y ago
Yahoo had one viable product: Yahoo mail. Instead of botching it, in 2010 they had a chance to make the best Android/iOS email/IM client by throwing a lot of weight behind it. The founders of WhatsApp were from Yahoo after all.

copperx 11y ago

Why Musk? His companies aren't profitable.

profeta 11y ago
Musk is bold and not afraid to invest aggressively. but he goes for easy pickings that are encumbered in conflicting laws, which he mostly ignore. He would curl up and cry at yahoo.

visakanv 11y ago

> Jobs or Musk in 2010 were tasked to turn Yahoo around Assuming either of them was actually given the mandate to do so by the board of directors, etc, I imagine they'd fire like 50-80% of the staff, get rid of anything that's not profitable, and produce one highly refined product at a time, something that hasn't been done well before. Source: Am both a Jobs and Musk fanboy and have done an unhealthy amount of reading about their histories and decision-making. I particular like this video of Jobs at NeXT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNfRgSlhIW0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNfRgSlhIW0

sireat 11y ago
That was a really good video and I say that as someone who is no fan of Jobs. Did NEXT manage to execute the plan and sell 50k workstations in 1991?
- tim333 11y ago
  Seems not - from Wikipedia "The NeXT computers experienced relatively limited sales, with estimates of about 50,000 units shipped in total" "NeXT withdrew from the hardware business in 1993 " So I'm guessing more like 20k.
codexjourneys 11y ago
Along these lines, here's an interesting quote about Steve Jobs' focus from a documentary photographer who had access to NeXT: "...it seems to me that, in general terms for Steve, he was so passionate about the goal and trying to invent something impossible that everyone had to be on this mission to Mars, and if you weren’t on the mission you didn’t need to be here. It was really a focused approach, so it wasn’t about me or you or hard feelings or anyone. It was about the thing and making the thing better." Read more at: http://nextshark.com/doug-menuez-who-spent-3-years-with-steve-jobs-reveals-what-he-was-like/#rmns http://nextshark.com/doug-menuez-who-spent-3-years-with-stev...

nostrademons 11y ago

"When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact." -- Warren Buffett I really doubt either Steve Jobs or Elon Musk could turn Yahoo around. With Jobs's Apple turnaround, he had the advantage of sharing (creating, really) Apple's cultural DNA; he didn't need to "turn around" a company, he needed to cut the fat and refocus it so it could do what it was doing a lot better. Elon Musk has never run a turnaround; his companies have certainly encountered difficulties, but it's easier to take a new organization with a strong mission and make it work than to take an old, sclerotic organization in a market that doesn't exist anymore and somehow make it relevant again.