Rumour has it that Yahoo! are looking for a new CEO. Some people have been putting their name forward for the role, or at least offering suggestions for Carol Bartz’s successor. This post is in response to Joe Stumps list of ideas.
To be clear, I know that list is not completely serious. I know that he’s not really angling for the CEO role and I understand that many of the options would not be achievable even if they were the best thing for Yahoo! That’s not the point I’m trying to make.
The point, in summary, is that buying a bunch of companies to get smart people is not going to fix Yahoo!s problems.
Let’s look at some of the suggestions and, more importantly, how they inter-relate.
Id buy Instagram and put them in charge of both Instagram and Flickr. They would have 100% autonomy over the entire Yahoo! Photo division.
Fine. Instagram has done really well. But what makes it successful? (Assuming that it is successful. So far it has managed to attract a lot of users but there’s no revenue stream as far as I can see.)
Is it the photo part? Well, partially. It has filters that people like playing around with. Another key to its success is the sharing, social side. But…
Id buy Path and With for the sole reason of bringing Dave and his team on to lead the new “Yahoo! Social” division.
What’s the direction of the company if “Yahoo! Photo” and “Yahoo! Social” are both doing social stuff? Who decides how to share photos or videos?
And how is social distinct from mobile?
I would buy Twitter and Square in order to bring Jack Dorsey on full-time to run a new division called “Yahoo! Mobile.” He would have 100% autonomy over the entire mobile strategy.
Part of the success of both Instagram and Path are the fact that they’re “mobile.”
Mobile and social are not divisions any more than a technology company should have an “internet” division; they are fundamentals that need to influence all modern web “properties.”
Buying companies is not a solution. They’ve bought plenty over the years, but that didn’t help. What happened to Flickr? How “Yahoo!” is it? What about Delicious?
What Yahoo! lacks is not smart people or good technology, it’s a coherent way of tying everything together. Unfortunately that can’t be fixed by maintaining existing fiefdoms or importing new ones.