Technology Liberation Front - Latest Comments in Jerry Yang: Bad at Bussiness or Politics?

Re: Jerry Yang: Bad at Bussiness or Politics?

BubbaDude — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 18:13:50 -0000

I'm not a hardcore libertarian who rejects all forms of government regulation, more of a libertarian light who believes in zero-based regulation. If a case can be made that a firm is inhibiting competition, I'm all for slapping them upside the head. It strikes me that Yahoo's Google deal was nothing more than a poison pill aimed at keeping Yang in the CEO's job by blocking the MS takeover attempt. So the SEC is the agency that should have been interested in it. He was screwing the shareholders to protect his own egotistical interest in being a CEO.

But I certainly agree with you that the move was ill-considered given the current climate in DC regarding the Internet and monopolistic practices. The irony is that Yahoo and Google largely created that climate by jumping aboard the net neutrality bandwagon.

Re: Jerry Yang: Bad at Bussiness or Politics?

cordblomquist — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 10:27:10 -0000

Richard, I don't think Yang is a rube from the sticks, but I one has to wonder how Yahoo! or Google could have thought their ad deal had any chance of going through given the current antitrust climate. It took around a year and a half for Sirius/XM to get approved, yet Google and Yahoo! bail out of their deal after just a few months seemingly surprised by the level of regulatory scrutiny. What does that say about either company's DC office?

I also agree that Yahoo! has made a lot of mistakes. They've been mismanaged for years and have failed to compete on search and advertising at every turn. Now they're trying to become a content company, but they seem to be failing to do that effectively as well. They have some of the greatest properties on the web, but no ability to make the whole greater than the sum of its first-rate parts.

You're also right to say that Yahoo! has done its fair share of nasty deals with governments, both domestic and foreign. I'm not sure, however, that we should wish bad actions back on to them as a consequence. It's my wish that no one use regulators as part of a business strategy, which clearly Yahoo!, Google, Microsoft, and nearly every big name in tech is doing.

The best way to ensure tech companies decrease their presence in DC is to take away power from the regulators. Then these folks could focus on developing good products instead of beating up on each other via regulators.

Re: Jerry Yang: Bad at Bussiness or Politics?

BubbaDude — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:52:13 -0000

I appreciate the fact that sophisticated policy wonks tend to regard Silicon Valley's geeks as untutored rubes from out in the sticks, but it's a actually a bit of a myth. Long before Yahoo! and Google got together to fondle each others private ad networks, Yahoo! was striking deals with the government of China to deny pro-democracy activists their human rights and advocating in Washington for a regulatory stranglehold on ISPs, so they deserve what they got in the regulatory wars. Yahoo! made a series of business blunders that culminated in Yang's effective termination as CEO, which just goes to show you that the skills it takes to start a company aren't the ones it takes to manage one. Forbes has a nice list of these screw-ups here: http://www.forbes.com/2008/11/18/yahoo-mistakes...

Re: Jerry Yang: Bad at Bussiness or Politics?

MikeRT — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 21:31:36 -0000

Let's face it. Yahoo! didn't take advantage of the opportunities available to them. They bought Overture, but didn't take it to the level that Google took AdSense and AdWords to. Yahoo! had a chance to buy Google early on when Google was small, and then turn them into an independent subsidiary that would provide all of the coolness for Yahoo!'s search engine.

Yahoo! is probably more in trouble from several failed opportunities than federal intervention.