Jerry Yang is Yahoo’s new CEO now that Terry Semel was abruptly shown the door. In some ways, I’m stunned given Yang has never given the impression he’s CEO material. While he’s certainly well-respected, Yang doesn’t ooze with charisma, personality or leadership, which makes him an interesting choice as CEO.
But – and this is a big but – Yang may be the right person at the right time. My sense of Yahoo recently is it has lost is corporate soul. By that, I mean Yahoo went from being a company with personality (fun, energetic, somewhat irreverent) to being a Big Serious Company. This is maybe one of the reasons why Google has been kicking some serious Yahoo ass in recent years. Google is cool; Yahoo is not. Google has personality and cockiness; Yahoo is bland and strategically defensive.
While there are many things that Semel did right (one of them being getting consumers to actually pay for Web-based services), one area where Yahoo dropped the ball and lost the respect of the online community is its strange acquisition strategy. It would spend gobs of money buying cool start-ups such as Flickr and MyBlogLogs and then take away everything that made them cool in the first place. Can you imagine what Yahoo under Semel would have done with Facebook?
Anyway, I wish Yang a lot of luck. Maybe he’ll surprise us all and emerge as an effective leader for a company badly in need of direction. Maybe Yang can bring back Yahoo’s joie de vivre. One thing I do like about Yang’s blog post is the last paragraph:
“The time for me is right. The time is now. The Internet is still young, the opportunities ahead are tremendous, and I’m ready to rally our nearly 12,000 Yahoos around the world to help seize them.” Confident. Upbeat. Motivational.
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3 Comments
Man, it is about time they start to get rid of the dead weight at the top.
Yahoo Canada next!
First of all, Semel’s departure is not sudden. It’s been coming for 18 months.
Also, the founder a company is often best suited to BE CEO. Steve Jobs is a good example. We’ll see if Michael Dell follows suit. I’m sure a little bit of charisma and original vision will go a long way at the Y.
I would like to see what yahoo’s Company Motivational Profile is for a class assignment can you please help with my request thank you.
Lonnie