Goodbye Semel brick road at Yahoo, Yang named new CEO |
Yesterday while returning home we stopped for lunch in Yreka, California for pizza at Round Table. On the TV I saw the “Breaking” caption from CNN that there were management changes afoot at Yahoo including Terry Semel retiring.
As a Yahoo shareholder disgusted with stock performance and bonehead management statements the last five quarters, it’s good to hear there is a new (?) Yahoo vision.
Jerry Yang writes about his new position as CEO, replacing Semel, and Yahoo’s vision:
What is that vision? A Yahoo! that executes with speed, clarity and discipline. A Yahoo! that increases its focus on differentiating its products and investing in creativity and innovation. A Yahoo! that better monetizes its audience. A Yahoo! whose great talent is galvanized to address its challenges. And a Yahoo! that is better focused on what’s important to its users, customers, and employees.
It will take most the day to get caught up with phone calls, email and reading, but I’m certain a bunch of blog posts and articles have weighed in on these moves and what they will mean for Yahoo future. These moves could prove to be a bit of a smokescreen for the sixth consecutive quarter financial results being disappointing.
A few things are bouncing around inside my head. Why is the former Yahoo Chief Financial Officer Sue Decker now named the Yahoo president? Is this a token promotion, a sideways move, a way to get her out of the way? Jerry Yang was part of the duo that originally started Yahoo in 1995, so seeing Yang in the CEO position makes more sense than Decker who at least seems externally to be part of the problem, not the solution.
Did this post make you go hmm?
(Hmm, no ratings yet)
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I’ve been waiting all day to hear your thoughts on this. With you being a shareholder, I’ve always enjoyed hearing your take on the search giant. Most of the coverage I’ve read so far has been a great, but now what sort of response. When the news was announced the stock traded up 5% in the after market, but finished the day down 2%. I’d like to see a few more details about how they plan on turning Yahoo! around, but it was a change that needed to take place, even if they haven’t figured out how to take search back from Google for now.
Comment by Davis Freeberg — June 19, 2007 @ 1:38 pm PST
As Standard & Poor’s sees it, Jerry Yang is not exactly new blood, any more than Sue Decker is. He’s helped Yahoo to rise. yes, but also to fall. That’s a sad looking stock chart.
Comment by Michael — June 19, 2007 @ 2:38 pm PST
Mrs. Decker’s either going to get Panama supertuned (late Q2 performance is not looking good) or she’s going to fall. Hard.
It’s a lateral “demotion”. It could be she was moved out of CFO to make room for someone ideally suited for an acquisition event… and she/Yang are interim C Level. Just thinking out loud.
Comment by Gerald Buckley — June 19, 2007 @ 4:40 pm PST
Well sure. And what Yang secretly meant was, “We’re great, we’re going to be greater… so buy us, somebody.”
Comment by Michael — June 19, 2007 @ 4:44 pm PST
Curious hearing Yang talk about the importance of winning in the meeting:
http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-yahoo-shakeup-why-now/
Since the importance of “winning” has been a sour topic in the past, I wonder what this really means for Yahoo going forward. Empty promises? Lofty goals?
Win against Google in the search wars? I don’t think so. They would be wiser to compete on the portal and software level where Google isn’t nearly as entrenched (yet) and form an alliance with Microsoft on search. Microsoft + Yahoo = 30% (roughly) of the search market which is about what Firefox has versus IE and that is enough to be a serious threat.
I’ve read many other opinions that they should focus on niche search. They have all that Yahoo Answers data but I still haven’t seen it fully utilized to make their core search that much better. A big opportunity there if they can supplement machine results with human analyzed results. Google is competition vulnerable in a number of places that Yahoo could — and should — target while they still can. Whether Yang + Decker is the secret sauce to make that happen remains to be seen.
I have little faith in Panama after seeing what the abortion YPN is compared to Adsense, Gerald, but we’ll see.
Comment by TDavid — June 19, 2007 @ 5:12 pm PST
Oh I’m digging Adsense and AdWords big time. But, if Decker can’t pull that rabbit out of the hat… she and Semel will be running the Oxygen Network or something real soon.
Comment by Gerald Buckley — June 19, 2007 @ 8:05 pm PST