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You sound like Michael Dell in the 90s saying Apple should be liquidated. I'm not saying Yahoo has a second act coming or anything like that, but rather that y

You sound like Michael Dell in the 90s saying Apple should be liquidated. I'm not saying Yahoo has a second act coming or anything like that, but rather that your armchair analysis ignores the reality of Yahoo's DNA as a company.

wpietri 13y ago
Which of Yahoo's DNA do you have in mind? Apple got turned around because Jobs came back and took it over using people from NeXT. Apple's success is built on different people, different products, and a different OS than were present before the Jobs/NeXT merger. The valley is a very competitive hiring environment, so anybody good who wanted to leave Yahoo has presumably left. And Yahoo has been in sad shape for a very long time. I'm not saying there isn't some valuable DNA left, but I wonder where you think it might be.
- dasil003 13y ago
  DNA defines an organism, it doesn't leave. My point is that Yahoo! has a lot of operations and revenues that are based on a history. You can't just liquidate most of it and use the rest to create a hedge fund, that kind of thinking only makes sense long enough to write a pithy comment. The reality is that large corporations don't "pivot", they turn very slowly and they can only make a big turn with a long and concerted effort.
  - wpietri 13y ago
    The metaphor doesn't seem to be helping. History doesn't build software. That takes people using a process and embedded in a culture. If there's some sort of long-lasting Yahoo-ness, it's embodied in that. I think the other guy's plan is crazy. But Yahoo has spent a lot of years being a has-been coasting on the strengths of former glory. I think reasonable people can say that the enormous inertia you describe is too much to overcome, and that you might as well not bother trying to turn it. That would involve just letting it coast slowly to wherever it's going, squeezing out profits as long as you can. Yahoo probably won't do that on its own, but that's exactly what a sufficiently large corporate raider might do with it.

wpietri 13y ago

Which of Yahoo's DNA do you have in mind? Apple got turned around because Jobs came back and took it over using people from NeXT. Apple's success is built on different people, different products, and a different OS than were present before the Jobs/NeXT merger. The valley is a very competitive hiring environment, so anybody good who wanted to leave Yahoo has presumably left. And Yahoo has been in sad shape for a very long time. I'm not saying there isn't some valuable DNA left, but I wonder where you think it might be.

dasil003 13y ago
DNA defines an organism, it doesn't leave. My point is that Yahoo! has a lot of operations and revenues that are based on a history. You can't just liquidate most of it and use the rest to create a hedge fund, that kind of thinking only makes sense long enough to write a pithy comment. The reality is that large corporations don't "pivot", they turn very slowly and they can only make a big turn with a long and concerted effort.
- wpietri 13y ago
  The metaphor doesn't seem to be helping. History doesn't build software. That takes people using a process and embedded in a culture. If there's some sort of long-lasting Yahoo-ness, it's embodied in that. I think the other guy's plan is crazy. But Yahoo has spent a lot of years being a has-been coasting on the strengths of former glory. I think reasonable people can say that the enormous inertia you describe is too much to overcome, and that you might as well not bother trying to turn it. That would involve just letting it coast slowly to wherever it's going, squeezing out profits as long as you can. Yahoo probably won't do that on its own, but that's exactly what a sufficiently large corporate raider might do with it.