After Firing CEO, Yahoo Puts Itself Up For Sale 264
Reeses writes "Fare thee well, Yahoo: In addition to firing CEO Carol Bartz, Yahoo's board has now put the company up for sale. From the article: 'It was once the world's leading search engine, its founders held talks about a merger with Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation – and it even managed to fend off a $44bn takeover bid by Microsoft. But Yahoo has put itself up for sale, after firing its chief executive of 18 months Carol Bartz by phone.'"
On /. by the end of the day (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft buys Yahoo
Re:Hmm, I might consider it (Score:5, Interesting)
I've never had fond memories of using Yahoo: their front page has always been bloated, I preferred Altavista search results back when it existed for real, Yahoo made a mess of Egroups when they bought it and turned it into the loathsome Yahoo Groups of today...
I say good riddance.
Re:I was wondering... (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm 22, and my primary email address is, and has been ever since 1996, a Yahoo, and I find their email front end THE best on the net so far: keyboard shortcuts (even if they recently removed the ability to sort into folders with the number keys alone, they just require one more keypress), easily managed, can generate disposable 'decoy' addresses, and has proper folders instead of Gmail's "Labels" (which also have their merits, but I prefer folders).
I really hope they won't axe the Mail service, even if they dump everything else, that is one thing worth saving.
Re:Moral of the story.... (Score:5, Interesting)
So why is Steve Ballmer so shit?
Honestly, I don't think it's that at all. I think it's that "business" folk in general are shit. They're great at fiddling spreadsheets, and ensuring they get awesome payouts for the most random reasons, and they're great at acquiring companies, ripping them to shreds and making headlines that give investors hardons.
But to actually innovate and get a company to produce a worthwhile product? No they're fucking useless.
The reason original founders do well isn't because they have a stake in the company, but because they are genuinely interested in what the company does- they came up with the idea they did because that idea appeals to them personally. This is why Ballmer sucks- because he's a businessman and doesn't give a flying fuck about software, it's why the company did so well under Gates.
This is why Google dumped Schmidt and handed things back to Larry, because Schmidt is a businessman. He's great at lobbying politicians and so forth, but creating worthwhile and innovative new products? That's not really Schmidt's area of expertise.
Really you need both to an extent, but there's a common pattern between all these companies who have lost their CEOs who were genuinely interested in the product of their company and replaced them purely with "business leaders" - they've all gone to shit.
Re:Moral of the story.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Moral of the story.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Moral of the story.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Lou Gerstner .. IBM didn't make him buy a huge chunk of the company .. hell the dude couldnt even operate a computer .. he was the former CEO of Nabisco ... but he turned things around at IBM .. so no huge financial stake isn't the answer. In fact it may lead to greed-based short term decisions.
Steve Jobs .. he owns more of Disney than he does of Apple .. and took a $1 salary. Obviously his main motive wasn't money ..rather making Apple the greatest company in the history of the world.
There are plenty of other examples as well. Financial carrots aren't necessarily best. And also, the most important factor is the horse, not the carrot.
Re:Moral of the story.... (Score:4, Interesting)
IE: The Peter Principle [wikipedia.org].