4 ms·
Yahoo went bad because: 1. It has no notable engineering foundation; 2. It has no clear vision about what it is and where it's going; and 3. Like Microsoft,
by cletus 16y ago
Yahoo went bad because:
1. It has no notable engineering foundation;
2. It has no clear vision about what it is and where it's going; and
3. Like Microsoft, it's put a business person in charge, which is the death knell of any tech company. You need someone with a technical foundation or a product person, not a business wonk.
- werrett 16y agoYahoo went bad because a business person was put in charge? From my point of view I would say that is generally the rule rather the exception. Particularly for those firms wanting to go public. I'm going to defer to mixmax's quip about putting a gardner in charge of a gardening firm's finances [1] as the alternative. You can't argue Jobs or Schmidt are not business people. Although Schmidt could be used to either refute or backup your point depending on how you feel about Google these days. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1596850 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1596850
- philwelch 16y agoSchmidt has a technical background though. Among other things he was the co-author of lex.
- forgottenpaswrd 16y agoYou need to put a business person in place, who also has a technical background(look at Steve Jobs, although he is not a techie, he worked from day one with technical people and understand them).
- cletus 16y agoSteve is the ultimate product guy. Agree with him or not, agree with his vision or not, he clearly has a vision for Apple and its products. The same can't be said for Carol Bartz or Steve Ballmer. Those are the people you want in the room when you're organizing an M&A deal, not when creating consumer oriented products.