“Occasionally I write articles titled ‘Why CEO X was fired,'” Horace Dediu writes for asymco.
“These are allegorical stories. I don’t base the opinion on evidence but on perception of what’s wrong with a particular company’s strategy and then try to trace the point of strategic failure which should have triggered management change. Of course, the reasons are often something else, probably mundane or ‘political’ in nature,” Dediu writes. “The objective therefore is to analyze strategy and more precisely strategy failure.”
Dediu writes, “So, Yahoo! What went wrong?”
Read more in the full article, in which Deidu concludes that Yahoo with or without Bartz “is still dying,” here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Kristian” for the heads up.]
Related article:
Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz axed, bids farewell via Apple iPad – September 6, 2011
Too bad Yahoo didn’t sell out to Microsoft when they could have walked away rich. Then Yahoo would have been Microsoft’s problem.
I remember using Yahoo! when it was a simple text website, with no graphics, back in the stone age when there was no search because you count the interesting websites on any given topic on your fingers. Shame they couldn’t keep up with the times.
Oh well. At least those kids who started the thing by sharing URLs in college got rich.
——RM
Are you one of those elders who remember floppy discs?
Punchcards, teletype and I even booted an Apple II from a cassette tape, when I was all grown up.
8″, 5.25″ and 3.5″
and 1 MB of memory meant a Winchester Hard Drive.
Horace nails it again.
Yahoo is bound to die no matter who the CEO because they offer nothing that isn’t available in a thousand other places. Could be duplicated and improved for a fraction of current “value”
It’s an empty shell posing as a business.
Not Carol’s fault, except her BSing that she could do anything about the decline.
I beg to differ on one point: The Yahoo eGroups.
Yes, Yahoo has inflicted crap code and remarkably consistent server failures into what was once the wonderful eGroups website. Yes, loads of groups have been abandoned and turned into cess pits of SPAM.
But I’ve enjoyed and continue to enjoy all of the eGroups I have, and continue to administer. One of my groups has nearly 800 terrific members.
No other website has come close to providing what eGroups started (and Yahoo lamely continue). Microsoft’s groups FAILed. Apple’s .Mac groups FAILed. I find nothing preferable about Google groups, sorry. I like eGroups best, despite Yahoo’s mismanagement. If Yahoo does go belly up or get chomped down by some other company, just give me my eGroups please, and don’t frack them up or I’ll bite you! 😡
While for Yahoo’s shareholders the Microsoft buyout would have been a boon, as a regular user of YahooGroups and Yahoo’s Fantasy Football, I am super happy that they never experienced the sure death that Microsoft’s embrace would have entailed.
As for Bartz, she may have deserved to be fired, but seriously, firing a CEO by phone? *shakes head*
I like yahoo, the content, the articles, the finance site, the email, the layout of the site.
+1