Yahoo! Finally Does Something Right

Allen & Company retreat, Anne Mulcahy, Ari Emanuel, Barry Diller, Ben Silverman, Bob Iger, Bobby Kotick, Carol Bartz, Charlie Rose, Cory Booker, DumbDumb, Electus, Eric Schmidt, Erin Burnett, Gina Bianchini, Harvey Weinstein, Herb Allen, Herb Allen Sun Valley Conference, Herbert Allen, Jean-Bernard Levy, Jeff Bewkes, Jeff Weiner, Jeff Zucker, Jeffrey Immelt, Jerry Yang, John Donahue, Ken Auletta, Khan Manka, Lachlan Murdoch, Lady Gaga, Leslie Moonves, Lionel Barber, Lloyd Grohl, Manka Bros., Marc Andreessen, Marissa Mayer, Mark Pincus, Mark Zuckerberg, Martin Sorrell, Mathias Dopfner, Mike Bloomberg, Niall FitzGerald, Peter Chernin, Phillippe Dauman, Reid Hoffman, Richard Parsons, Ricky Van Veen, Rob Wiesenthal, Robert L. Johnson, Ron Meyer, Rupert Murdoch, Sergey Brin, Sheryl Sandberg, Steve Jobs, Sun Valley Retreat, Sun Valley Retreat 2010, Terry Semel, Tom Freston, Tom Friedman, Ursula Burns, Vivi Nevo, Warren Buffett, World's Largest Media Company, Rupert Murdoch, Jose Maria Aznar, natalie Bancroft, Peter Barnes, Chase Carey, Kenneth Cowley, David DeVoe, Viet Dinh, Rod Eddington, Joel Klein, Andrew S.B. Knight, James Murdoch, Lachlan Murdoch, Thomas Perkins, Arthur Siskind, John Thornton, Stanley Shuman, Rebekah Brooks, Les Hinton, Teri Everett, jack Horner, Julie Henderson, Reed Nolte, Roger Ailes, Janet Nova, John Nallen, Beryl Cook, Michael Regan, Genie Gavenchak, Brian Lewis, Irena Briganti, Dan Berger, Rosabel Tao, Steven Rubenstein, Suzanne Halpin, Elisabeth Murdoch, Carol Bartz, Roy Bostock, Patti Hart, Sue James, Vyomesh Joshi, David Kenny, Arthur Kern, Brad Smith, Gary Wilson, Jerry Yang, Blake Irving, Ross Levinsohn, Rose Tsou, Rich Riley, Tim Morse, Michael J. Callahan, David Dibble, David Filo, Dr. Prabhakar Roghavan, Jeff Russakow, Elisa Steele, David Windley, Scott ThompsonSCREAMING BUY!

YHOO is headed for $50/share.

Marissa Mayer is a perfect choice.

Great for Yahoo!

Great for Silicon Valley.

It’s a stunning move – completely shocking and unexpected.

If you’re worried about her pregnancy – then shame on you.

Her pregnancy makes me even more bullish on the stock.

Marissa is going to make this work and no one should question it (especially the loser stock holders who, for some reason, were holding Yahoo! stock before this announcement).

I, frankly, didn’t think the Yahoo! Board had the cojones to make such a choice.

Well done.

And next year, at Herb Allen’s Sun Valley Conference crap-fest for moguls, there will be a new Woman of Sun Valley (sorry Sheryl Sandberg).

And if, for whatever reason, things don’t work out (very small chance), Ms. Mayer can take comfort that like her predecessors Scott ThompsonJerry Yang and Carol BartzManka Bros. will offer her a job.

Good luck, Marissa (don’t read too many blog comments).

Accel Partners, Ben Silverman, Bob Iger, Chris Hughes, David Kirkpatrick, Dustin Moskovitz, Eduardo Saverin, Gerald Levin, Greylock Partners, HBO, Jeff Bewkes, Jeff Zucker, Jill Kennedy, Joanna Shields, Jon Miller, Khan Manka, Li Ka-shing, Manka Bros., Mark Cuban, Mark Zuckerberg, Matt Cohler, MySpace, Nicolas Carlson, OnMedea, Owen Van Natta, Paul Buchheit, Peter Thiel, Rupert Murdoch, Sheryl Sandberg, Sumner Redstone, Toy Story 3Jill Kennedy – OnMedea

25 Replies to “Yahoo! Finally Does Something Right”

  1. Wow. That’s a big catch for Y!. Anybody who’s met her will say the same thing–she is incredibly bright and talented. She’ll bring some people from Google over and she’ll make changes at Y! at a very, very fast pace. She’s wealthy beyond her dreams already and has nothing to lose and everything to gain by taking over a beaten down company like Y!

  2. She shipped what at Google?

    Already living the good live, focused on cupcakes and fashion – is this what Yahoo was missing? Maybe they were one red velvet cupcake away from pulling it all together.

    Yahoo required open heart surgery, not tech “royalty”.

    So sad – Jason K was much more along the lines of who they need.

  3. Wrong Jill. It is amazing how often people confuse success with strategy. Just because someone has been successful does not mean s/he had a strategy.

    Yahoo needs a strategy at this point and Ms. Mayer is yet to show she is good at that. She has been successful no doubt. But Google is a hammer and sees everything as a nail (advertising). They don’t have a strategy.

  4. I could not agree with you more. Congratulations to Marissa and her appointment as
    Yahoo’s new CEO. She certainly has the experience and know-how to make online
    products that I want to use and recommend to my friends.

    Hopefully she will be given the leeway to surround herself with a talented group of
    executives that will help revive one of the best online brands of my generation.

  5. Impressive.

    Just shows what happens when you get rid of a founder (I’m looking at you, Jerry) whose main qualification for a new CEO is that said person not interfere with his ability to meddle in everything. Jerry’s departure has meant Yahoo can actually hire someone who is smarter than founders and the board. Jerry paid the price for mucking up the Microsoft deal, but it’s Yahoo that gained.

    But, it must be costing Yahoo a ship load of money. And you know what happens every time Yahoo brings on a massively compensated executive. Layoffs. Gotta pay for it somehow.

  6. Sorry Jill – you’re wrong. This is another train wreck — third (fourth?) in a row.

    Mayer is well-known within Google as being a poor team leader and excessively controlling. People flee her teams in droves. She does well-defined things OK, but is more a tactician than a strategist. And never had any revenue responsibility that I can see (and turnaround? Fugetaboutit.). There’s a reason that she was shunted off to the side at Google in recent years and was removed from the operating committee.

    Yahoo’s board had a chance to do something right for a change and really blew it. Despite his resume blunder, Scott was an infinitely better choice, and so would Ross have been. If you want a female Googler with solid credentials, Susan Wojcicki would have been much better.

    1. Reykyavik, I could not agree more. This is the Peter Principle in action.

      Wikipedia:

      “The Peter Principle is a belief that in an organization where promotion is based on achievement, success, and merit, that organization’s members will eventually be promoted beyond their level of ability. The principle is commonly phrased, “employees tend to rise to their level of incompetence.” In more formal parlance, the effect could be stated as: employees tend to be given more authority until they cannot continue to work competently.”

      The principle holds that in a hierarchy, members are promoted so long as they work competently. Eventually they are promoted to a position at which they are no longer competent (their “level of incompetence”), and there they remain, being unable to earn further promotions.

      Get the popcorn ready, pour the drinks and enjoy the show!

  7. Yahoo and Mayer seem to have fairly incongruous brands. Mayer seems to enjoy being regarded as stylish (unsure why) whereas Yahoo’s lack of style starts with the name. It’s not going to be easy to impose a new order on Yahoo given that they do have a certain brand DNA where Yahoo’s past is their claim to significance and part of the reason why Yahoo seems so painfully outmoded.

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