Moments after news got out that Yahoo’s next CEO will be Carol Bartz, the stock started dropping like a rock. It is down more than 2 percent. Her selection is not inspiring confidence on Wall Street, where investors are scratching their heads as much as tech pundits in Silicon Valley.
Who is this woman, and how is she going to turn Yahoo around?
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it makes me fondly remember the good old days in 2008
So, Mike, I guess you took it hard when I accused you of getting paid by Microsoft to blog against Yahoo, as they’ve done many times with other bloggers and ‘journalists’ before.
But listen, removing my comment about your lack of integrity seems a bit over defensive. I guess you’re still a lying sack of shit.
It’s b/c Wall Street knows she is less likely to do a deal with Microsoft, even for just search. That was propping up the stock somewhat. If she does deal with Microsoft, it will be down the road after she has assessed the potential performance of all of her assets. She’s not going to sell the crown jewels right out of the gate.
If I were her, Id do everyhting I could to scrub any executive DM experience at Sun from my resume.
I got this funny feeling she’s going to be looking for a job in a few months.
When will she start shedding hair as Yang did?
There is a definite gender bias against women in tech after Carly Fiorina made one of the worst mergers of all-time - combining HP and Compaq. At a time when your company needs a well-known, reputable tech executive, you bring in an unknown in Carol Bartz? Just another catastrophe in the making at Yahoo.
Michael, Carol Bartz is *far* from being an unknown.
That was a bad choice of words there. I know Carol ran Autodesk for over a decade and was an executive at Sun Microsystems. My concern is that Yahoo needs to ramp up its search business and maximize ad revenue. I find it hard to believe that she is the ideal candidate to lead these initiatives. Prove me wrong, Carol! I want to see my Yahoo stock in the 20’s by mid ‘09.
you will see it in US $50 soon, Yahoo! is such a good brand, its only matter of luck and some bad management, stock is going down. it will definitely bounce back given their strengths in Media and Display Ads. if Web TV is a big success, yahoo will get revenues from mobile (with their onesearch which outperforms google mobile search), TV and also their online services.
The golden days will come back for yahoo..
ex-yahoo: I agree, I just bought a pile of Yahoo!
that said, every time I hear someone say “The golden days will come back for…” I think “The south will rise again!!”
She would be great if yahoo did not need radical transformation. looks like yang still want to pull string in the background.
Carly Fiorina gets a pretty bum wrap for the HP/Compaq deal, but at the end of the day that deal set the stage for HP to become a more powerful company. The deal wouldn’t have happened if the majority of shareholders didn’t want it to happen, but the win cost her too much internally to stay. Hurd’s done great things with the pieces he had on the table after, as Michael puts it, “on of the worst mergers of all-time.”
Carol Bartz is a decisive leader who turned a sluggish Autodesk into a powerhouse. Yahoo! really needs a decisive leader; Yang has been anything but decisive, unless you think doing nothing is decisive.
You’ve never heard the saying “buy on the rumor, sell on the news?”
Looks like typical post-announcement drop to me.
Hmm.
Trust me on this, but Carol Bartz is one tough cookie.
Not only did she take Autodesk from $285M to $1.5B in 15 years, but did it in downturn hit marketplaces with competitors like PTC and SolidWorks that make the likes of Google & Microsoft look like hippy vegetarian peaceniks in comparison.
If I were Google, I wouldn’t get too smug about this.
but turning around yahoo is not a matter of being tough. a new ceo has to have real product savvy, and a deep understanding of web advertising in 2009. does carol bartz know adsense from adwords? it matters. does she know how targetted advertising on the web works? it matters. does she understand why facebook is stealing yahoo’s traffic? it matters.
anyone can be “tough”. yahoo needs insight. i don’t see it here.
larry and sergey loose no sleep tonight. ballmer is only impacted as to the willingness of bartz to do a deal
if bartz is smart she will realize she is out of her depth and just cut up yahoo into pieces for sale
What Yahoo needs isn’t another visionary.. they have that in spades with Jerry, David & Aristotle.
What they need is focus, organization and execution across the whole company, and you can betcha ass Carol will make sure that happens. IMHO, Yahoo won’t be able to do anything to move forward, unless those three areas are addressed, and quickly.
I hate to repeat myself, but she’s been through the same kind of situation with Autodesk, where not only did the MCAD & DCC markets shrink earlier in the decade, but it had to compete with cutthroat companies like PTC & Solidworks, in a space where complex feature sets and innovation are *critical* to success.
From when she joined, she took that company into two entirely new markets: Industrial/Mechanical 3D design, and Digital Content Creation, and succeeded in both markets.
I’m not saying Yahoo will be a cakewalk. I’m saying she can handle it. Easily.
My sentiments as well Iggy,
The product range, the depth of penetration in each market, the quality she has helped deliver and the long term strategy she put into Autodesk is stellar.
I think she can inject this into Yahoo. I think that Wall street should be looking at the long term gains (at Yahoo) from getting a ‘real’ CEO who will provide the skills to develop Yahoo rather than initiate a fire sale.
Business is business, she is a very good businesswoman, she has track record and she will apply good old fashioned business principles to Yahoo (which have been lacking).
I certainly would be more interested in investing in companies with hard core CEO’s such as Carol than younger (less experienced) puppet company heads as in ……..book.
My latest investment product for investors:
Sell yahoo at the price they believe it is worth and buy at at its real cost.
Smart move I think. Bartz is an organizational type, and Yahoo’s never been organized well. She’ll get things in order , help them maximize revenue (look for more axes to swing) and then leave in about two years.
I have heard very good things about her. Could see some major battles between her and Susan Decker the CFO though. I predict a CFO replacement in the near future.
Bottom line for me though - I still would not buy the stock.
I wonder if she related to my family, so i can ask for a job at Yahoo \o/
More seriously, i hope this change will give Yahoo what it needs to made better choice in the future.
Yeah, your job will be a broom with a nail to clean up the parking lot. Your command of the English language is horrific. You think you have the brains for much else ? I guess you think you do or you wouldn’t have written your asinine comment.
For my english, yeah it is not perfect, but as i work in Montreal, i uses french most of the time, easier for me as i’m french.
But thanks to take care of my brain status
And for my “asinine” comment, well just one of my fellow worker who’ve made a joke about me “taking the head of Yahoo” .
But now if you have no sense of humor, and the only thing you have to do with your time is being agressive with someone who did nothing, you must be the brain damaged one.
come on dad, you’re embarrassing me and mom. (By the way, my English teacher said you suck at using question marks) Anymore questions ? Huh ?
Um anyone else notice that http://sports.yahoo.com is down and that all the URIs on the main page are messed up? Wow, talk about disorganization…
Appears to be back up… was down for a good few minutes
David, it seems you have too much free time on your hands. But, by all means, keep us posted on the status of the yahoo home page.
I wonder if the stock price drop has less to do with Carol Bartz than the fact that Yahoo did something that made people remember they were in the room. They were all up in the news last year and then dropped off the radar of most traders. Then they announce a new ceo and stockholders remembered they still had worthless Yahoo stock to get rid of.
60 years old and she hasn’t lost her looks.
she lost her looks about a decade ago…was 50 pounds heavy so a few tip and tucks and peels have helped
This article seems to have succumbed to the classic Narrative Fallacy that Nassim Taleb (of Black Swan fame) constantly criticizes. Look at the stock charts of YHOO today and in the past few days. Is the the slightest evidence that the stock price variation is any more than the usual level of noise?
Vijay–I agree with you–let’s wait and see what the lady does!
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You people are dreaming if you think 50 a share is possible for Yahoo any time soon. No one is buying anything especially advertising for some time. 20 in about 3 years and that is a dream. Yahoo is getting slammed in China with the restriction to access and the Chinese are so racially biased they will only search Baidu and the likes. Yahoo just needs someone to hold the helm and not get deeper than it already is. Bartz just needs to collect her salary like a good executive and try to keep an income for as long as possible. She should be thankful she is getting anything. Yahoo just needed a low priced exec and they found a desperate one, just like they all are for the time being in every industry.
please stop using her college photo.
better than previous, but she’s 60 years old. Yahoo needs to get on board with the younger & generations and stints at Autodesk and Sun aren’t going to help that.
Just seems solid, but BORING…… maybe she’d just there to negotiate the best sale.
She will be just fine guys. Just give her a chance.
I am glad the Yahoo! board didn’t hire someone to just package and sell the company.
- Augustus
I am not impressed either. I personally think Bartz is WAY overrated!
http://www.anonweb.pro.tc
I think you are thinking like sukrat, but I think you should cover the other side of the topic in the post too…
This isn’t the time for yahoo to be testing out the Woman CEO concept. It rarely works.
Mike Shillington you just became my favorite poster. hahaha