Watching People Watch Yahoo Is A Bit Sickening

I guess I just don’t like the whole Wall Street mentality much. It is fascinating to me to watch all the Wall Street types pontificate about what Yahoo should do. It seems to me Wall Street is *always* focused on the wrong issues. Yahoo is a technology company, and to get out of the *purported* mess it is in right now, it needs one thing: new products that people want to use more and that monetize more effectively. And Wall Street has no intelligent insight into whether Yahoo can do that or if so, how.

So the idea that any bean counters outside the company can, based on what the current stock price is, or was during the last year, reasonably opine on the correct strategy regarding whether they should sell out seems crazy. Most of these analyses are skin deep. “Their stock peaked at X and now it is at 70% of X so if someone offers them 110% of current price they should sell.”

Bull.

I am not saying that Yahoo should or should not have sold to Microsoft. I am not even saying Jerry is the best CEO for Yahoo. I don't think he has been in the chair long enough to know. But I am saying that folks like Joe Nocera of The New York Times eviscerating Jerry for not selling are…, well lets just say, I am not convinced by their arguments. The analysis seems to be based on the idea that Yahoo’s best days are behind it, and senior executives leaving is some proof of that.

First of all, given where the company is, senior executives that have been there a long time may be *the reason* Yahoo is where it is now. To suggest that the company sucks, but all the people that brought it there are awesome is kinda dumb.

Second, the idea that any manager can or should manage to stock price or Wall Street demands, particularly in a tech company, is absolutely insane.

For example, Wall Street chafed when Amazon started its Web Services cloud computing initiative. Anyone with a brain now knows that AWS is one of the most important and strategic initiatives at the company. Another example, Wall Street doesn’t like Verizon laying fiber. It costs too much! Visionary ideas, right up until the very second they pay off, are considered distractions. Wall Street doesn’t like anything that they don’t understand or that isn’t an immediate hit. But Wall Street *loves* a good liquidation. Sell off the assets and give the money back to the shareholders. Don’t be an idiot and manage as if you are actually running a company!

Of course I shouldn’t just limit my criticism to Wall Street. Tech writers who have not done much more that write about tech – probably just on a blog – are for the most part out of their league on this stuff too. In truth, writing about product and corporate strategy is just a bit different than doing it. And even then, there are very few writers that seem to even be trying, except at the most superficial level. It is easier to just whine about Jerry.

And even calling for Jerry’s head wouldn’t be so bad if they had some special insight about him or what he should be doing (other than, of course, selling Yahoo). But they don’t. They seem to be doing it because its fun. This is bloodlust. It’s exciting. Like watching a no-holds-barred bare-knuckled street fight where someone is guaranteed to be carried out on a stretcher. Few of the people writing about this stuff, particularly the ones who are suggesting that Jerry is an idiot, really have much of a clue. But piling on, I am sure, is certainly more fun.

And so, what is the point of all of this?

There is nothing wrong with analyzing Yahoo. There is plenty more that can and should be discussed beyond the obvious fact that Yahoo can’t catch Google in search. Yahoo still has enormous assets, enormous traffic and great potential. But as far as I am concerned, there is little discussion about real next steps regarding product strategy. And at this point, as I see it, that is really all that matters.