Can She Turn Yahoo Into, Well, Google? from the New York Times takes a deep look at Yahoo’s new president, Susan Decker, and her capabilities of turning things around for the company. I’ll bulletpoint some of the reasons why people feel she may or may not accomplish big changes for Yahoo:
- Smart people like Warren Buffett, Steven Jobs, Craig Barrett, Hamilton James feel she can.
- Decker lacks operational experience, leading people to believe she cannot handle that portion of the business. However, some people feel her smarts will overcome the fact that she does not have that type of experience.
- Decker has proven the ability the lead highly skilled and creative people.
- She helped Yahoo reset expectations of growth after the dot-com burst.
- People like her fun and unpretentious personality.
- She was accredited for the eBay, newspaper and Right Media deals.
- But she was also blamed for the delay in the Panama release and setting too high expectations in Wall Street.
- She has been blamed for the failure of the Facebook deal and not securing an ad deal with MySpace.
- Some people felt they spent too much on Right Media.
Related Topics: Yahoo: Business Issues | Yahoo: Employees
This type of post is really, really valuable to those of us who otherwise don’t have the time to read the full article, so on behalf of all of us who don’t want to take your hard work for granted: Thanks!
I ad the opportunity and pleasure of working with Susan 3 years ago back when our paths crossed on the Euro 2004 Yahoo Campaigns back when she was a CFO.
She struck me as being one of those rare people that overwhelm you with confidence.
Immediately bought myself some stock after I head the news.