“The Yahoo CEO had offered to buy Google for roughly $3 billion, but the young Internet search firm wasn’t interested. Once upon a time, Google’s founders had come to Yahoo for an infusion of cash; now they were turning up their noses at what Semel believed was a perfectly reasonable offer. Worse, Semel’s lieutenants were telling him that, in fact, Google was probably worth at least $5 billion.”

What I’m saying is that Yahoo actually TRIED to buy Google for $3 billion, but Google wasn’t taking and Semel just wouldn’t go any higher. Quite frankly, even if he did, I doubt Google still would have sold.

It’s going to be hard to go to battle against Google when smaller, single-sector startups are nipping at their ankles.

I hope to see you in Santa Clara on May 24 for the Yahoo annual meeting of shareholders. As of this morning, our group has over $62 million of Yahoo stock pledged towards this campaign. If we want things to change at yahoo — and it’s got to start at the board-level in order for things to change at the ceo-level — all yhoo shareholders should vote “withhold” for several key directors and “for” others. We’ll see what happens. And good luck on that nobel prize.

Jacob:

I’m certainly not an agist. Age is a state of mind. Sumner Redstone, Alan Greenspan, and Rupert Murdoch certainly don’t act like most 75+ year olds that I know. They are all — whether you agree with all their strategic moves or not — men of action. Terry Semel is not.

I do not object to the fact that he is 64; I object to his inaction. His inaction suggests that — given his age and given the litany of other facts you can examine in the sum total of his record — he is biding his time, waiting to leave.

Why should Yahoo! shareholders wait for him to finally deign to leave? Let’s bring in a 75 year old who takes some action — or any other qualified candidate — rather than continue on in this exhausting state of limbo.

http://biz.yaho...6/27938_id.html

As Dave McClure stated in a previous post on his blog, the real problem with Yahoo has been that they haven’t been able to fully monetize their traffic. Despite that problem, Yahoo still has huge reach on a global scale & they have bought some companies recently that I think will make them a play long-term (Del.icio.us, Flickr,MyBlogLog, etc.) If I had to compare Yahoo and MSN relative to web plays, Yahoo beats them by a mile.

When I do something on the web, here’s what I do:
Search: Google
News: Yahoo
Email: Yahoo (one of my accounts)
Photos: Flickr
Sports: Yahoo
Finance: Yahoo
RSS: Yahoo

Google is an obvious presence in the search market, one I don’t see going away soon. But I do think it would be silly to count Yahoo out on the factors mentioned above & we shouldn’t forget that Yahoo has a large global presence relative to “branding”.

Perhaps Yahoo hasn’t entirely figured out what they are over the past few years & that’s the problem? A portal? A media outlet? A search engine? User-generated content? All of the above?

” I’m not sure why anyone visits Yahoo! when so many other services offer far superior functions and products. ”

Quick note: Having better features doesn’t always = user adoption. Products and features need to be digested by average users, not just those of us that work in the tech industry. A “better” product may not equate to simple.

“In fact, I just nominated myself for the board.”

cool! i just nominated myself for a nobel prize in medicine

i think a little ass-kicking is cool, but i am closer to my nobel prize than you are to being on yahoo’s board

Perhaps there are a lot of people who prefer one place/portal to do 90% of their web surfing and usage. However, as younger people grow in to a $$$ transactional age and their need for comprehensive enterprise solutions grows, Yahoo! will likely see a marked decline in dedicated usage.

I think Yahoo! has about 3 years to find something on the Net where they are the market leader. Otherwise, the hallows may be calling. As Jack Welch said, “If you aren’t first or second in a business, you’re wasting your time.” Tell me: what is Yahoo! first or second in right now? (And I don’t mean by default.)

Not when you’re paid $100M a year. A drunk off the street could have run Yahoo as well as it has been over the last 5 years.

The fault doesn’t just lay with him, but with the board too. I wouldn’t be surprised if it came out several of them made a couple million a year for just approving whatever Terry wanted in compensation.

Conclusion: Yahoo!’s board needs to immediately remove Mr. Semel – who is 64 – and begin a search process to find a new Chairman and CEO. This Chairman and CEO search should examine all qualified internal and external candidates.

What does Terry’s age have to do with it? Is it somehow an acceptable conclusion that because he’s 64 he’s no longer fit for the job? This is inexcusable age discrimination IMHO. It invalidates an otherwise well constructed argument why Mr. Semel’s performance is falling short (note, I’m just qualifying the argument as well constructed, not the conclusions).

Whichever of the big three can pull this off will be the big winner…as I see it right now Google is in the lead. Put the whole shootin match (Panama, adwords, etc.)on the cell phone and combine it with gps and bada bing thats your killer online advertising platform. You gotta hold the customers hand right down to the register…hell even take out their wallets if ya can….then you cooking with gas!

So, what should Yahoo! do?

1. Find an insider who understands Yahoo!’s culture and the business of search

2. Sell off some non-core assets and re-invest the proceeds into R&D

3. Did I mention returning to basics?

No, folks, I am not an “expert” on business strategy. I’m not an “expert” in anything. I don’t claim to know anything like so many other “experts” in this industry and others (and, contrary to popular belief, most “experts” are full of their own shit). However, common sense, is well, common sense. I seem to have done quite well with it, coupled with some great knowledge, tenacity, patience and luck all mixed in together.

And for crying out loud, GET RID of Yahoo! Photos and other services where things overlap. Why the hell does anyone need two photo sites when you’ve got the world’s MOST popular and KICK ASS photo sharing property (umm, Flickr?)

Ahhh, it’s just the American way to make changes when it’s far too late — it’s only then when our ignorance and arrogance fails us and we awaken to realize we need to do something. We do this shit everyday in society, business, relationships, ahhh … why bother going on.

to his points:

1. compensation is an issue, and tech land abounds with ridiculous payouts to execs. the only way this will be fixed is if shareholders SELL THEIR F#$%#$% SHARES and make their intentions clear (starting to see a trend here?)

2. the LA campus for the media group was a major boondoggle and waste of time. the amount of shuttling done by yahoo between southern and northern cal is keeping southwest airlines in the green. agreed that the southern cal campus should just be erased, but then again, this is a minor issue at this point.

3. failing to buy youtube and myspace….not sure. youtube is strategic, myspace will be a ghost town in five years (like facebook). how much money are you going to plonk down for a nightclub? the churn in social is going to be unreal, we are already seeing it, i don’t fault yahoo for not getting in a bidding war for these sites. youtube is another issue, that was a f%#$up, it will be strategic for google.

4. org chart issues…yahoo is taking care of these now. by 2008 the reorg should be “done”.

- he has to streamline the org
- more accountability to his managers
- improve international performance in particular in europe
- and work on global scale in everything they are doing.. and finally
- entering some new markets without lunching any entity..