Yahoo is a classic 1990s land-grab story: go public, use the inflated stock to grab as much territory as possible. In that game, they out-executed everyone else

Yahoo is a classic 1990s land-grab story: go public, use the inflated stock to grab as much territory as possible. In that game, they out-executed everyone else (Lycos, Infoseek, Excite ...) Keep in mind Viaweb was one of their minor land-grabs! Inevitably, this process destroys the soul of the company. The people who sold them companies mostly didn't stick around (pg!) because they realized there was no soul. It is very hard to repair such companies (I never say impossible, but very hard!). The comparison is not Apple, because Apple was never built that way. Even in its darkest hour, it had a soul. To give a more relevant contrast, I believe Sun can be repaired, but alas, the longer management fiddles, the more difficult the task becomes.