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After Firing CEO, Yahoo Puts Itself Up For Sale

Posted by samzenpus on from the make-me-an-offer dept.

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.'"

15 of 264 comments (clear)

  1. Moral of the story.... by Lumpy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    if the CEO has no personal deep financial stake in the company's success, then they are worthless.

    Require a CEO to buy a large chunk of your company. IT's why the people that built the company are always far more successful at running it than some idiot that got his masters in Business Administration, and has connections.

    --
    Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    1. Re:Moral of the story.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The main reason the founders are more successful is that if they're not very good at it, the company never gets off the ground, and you just don't hear about it. Natural selection, let's call it. Unfortunately, you can't choose their successor the same way - you can't have many iterations of the company, each managed by different potential successor, and then choose the best one.

    2. Re:Moral of the story.... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Unfortunately, that theory captures an incomplete picture of the founder effect:

      Requiring the CEO to buy a chunk of the company can provide them with a greater financial stake in the company's success, or it can just provide them with the incentive to axe the R&D department, pump out a few quarters that Wall Street loves, and give themselves a giant bonus in the form of "shareholder value" before moving on...

      If anything, having a CEO without major holdings(and without a "Congratulations, you fucked up!" bonus larger than a peon's lifetime earnings, if that isn't to scary to think about) might actually help ensure that they take the long view; because they don't have the same financial incentive to pump, loot, and leave.

      Founders(except of built-for-acquisition jobs) tend to have major holdings and personal emotional investments, and it takes both to make them do what they do...

    3. Re:Moral of the story.... by SlippyToad · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Better yet, why not bar all forms of golden parachute compensation. If the CEO is fired, they're FUCKING FIRED, not given a huge handjob on the way out the door.

      Our corporate culture rewards failure rather than success, which is why our economy sucks so badly.

      --
      One day I feel I'm ahead of the wheel / the next it's rolling over me / I can get back on / I can get back on
    4. Re:Moral of the story.... by Xest · · Score: 4, 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.

    5. Re:Moral of the story.... by WindBourne · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Wrong approach. All employees and executives must NOT own any common stock. Instead, they should have employee stock. Upon getting a job with a company, employee gets a set amount of employee stock. No bonus are given. Instead, dividends are paid to employees or (employees AND common stock). With this approach, all have a common interest in seeing the company make the most money possible over a long term. With your approach, executives have a strong incentive to play the stock market game, instead of focusing on the company's long term gains.

      --
      I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
    6. Re:Moral of the story.... by NormalVisual · · Score: 4, Interesting

      It doesn't always work like that though. Case in point - Paul Pressler understood retail very well, and did a fine job running the Disney Store retail subsidiary of the Walt Disney Company. When he was given more responsibility in the form of managing the much larger Parks and Resorts subsidiary, it became quickly and painfully obvious that he didn't understand that market *at all*, and cost the company a lot of money due to his incompetence.

      --
      Please stand clear of the doors, por favor mantenganse alejado de las puertas
    7. Re:Moral of the story.... by backslashdot · · Score: 3, 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.

    8. Re:Moral of the story.... by gbjbaanb · · Score: 4, Insightful

      seriously, the reason for not airing bad laundry is the interview for the next job - you do not want to turn up to an interview with the guy hiring you reading all about the nasty bitchy things you said about your previous company in the newspaper.

      The board makes decisions you don't like, then quit. The CEO is part of the board don't forget, its not some personal fiefdom where you and only you are the guy who has to do everything. Its not much different from being one of the peons whose boss and/or peers and/or upper management make a decision that you disagree with.

      Payments for leaving despite making an almighty f***up are just plain wrong.

    9. Re:Moral of the story.... by rtaylor · · Score: 3

      There is a huge different in leadership requirements for a startup with zero to 3 employees versus an established firm with several thousand employees

      Very few founders make that transition well. Most founders have a difficult time of letting go of the micromanaging and trying to take part in everything in order to scale beyond themselves.

      --
      Rod Taylor
    10. Re:Moral of the story.... by nschubach · · Score: 3, Interesting

      IE: The Peter Principle.

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    11. Re:Moral of the story.... by sootman · · Score: 5, Informative

      > Requiring the CEO to buy a chunk of the company can provide them with a greater
      > financial stake in the company's success, or it can just provide them with the incentive
      > to axe the R&D department, pump out a few quarters that Wall Street loves, and give
      > themselves a giant bonus in the form of "shareholder value" before moving on...
      >
      > If anything, having a CEO without major holdings... might actually help ensure
      > that they take the long view...

      It's not either/or. There are ways to give someone a stake in the company and make it in their best interests to stick around and do good work. From last month's news about Apple's new CEO...

      In connection with Mr. Cook's appointment as Chief Executive Officer, the Board awarded Mr. Cook 1,000,000 restricted stock units. Fifty percent of the restricted stock units are scheduled to vest on each of August 24, 2016 and August 24, 2021, subject to Mr. Cook's continued employment with Apple through each such date.

      At the moment, those one million shares are worth about $400 million. It's entirely possible he'll become a billionaire as Apple's CEO.

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  2. On /. by the end of the day by Rik+Sweeney · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Microsoft buys Yahoo

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    Summation 2
  3. Re:Hmm, I might consider it by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · 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.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
  4. Re:I was wondering... by ThunderBird89 · · Score: 4, 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.

    --
    Hyperbole: I use it liberally!