Yahoo is a bleeding animal. Left lying, gasping for its breath, after a larger animal (Microsoft) struck and then walked away after it proved too difficult to eat. (That was just announced a few minutes ago).
How will Yahoo heal?
Some daunting challenges:
1. The perception itself that Yahoo is a wounded animal.
2. The bleeding of interesting employees, both due to layoffs as well as people just leaving to join stronger companies.
3. The trouble that it has keeping its search market share.
4. They started working on a deal with Google to sell its advertising. That’s going to prove tough to get through regulators and will cause public opinion to turn against Google, so I believe that Google deal will fall apart soon.
So, if you were in Yahoo now, what would you be doing?
Me? I would first rally the troops. Offer some real financial packages to key employees. Release a video tomorrow that explains why Yahoo believes it is worth $37 a share (people I talk with don’t believe it is).
But after that, how do you do the real work of regaining momentum? Think about college students. Would anyone want to go to work there this summer? Google and Facebook seem a lot cooler than working at Yahoo.
If Yahoo’s management can stop the bleeding and get up and start running again, it’ll be quite impressive. I just don’t know that it has enough life in it to do that. Plus, when Rocky and me heard the news (we were driving back from Maker’s Faire) we both looked at each other and said “shareholder lawsuits.”
The bleeding might just start to be apparent. Tonight I’m going to a dinner with a ton of CEOs and I’ll ask around what they would do.