Last year when Terry Semel resigned as Yahoo CEO and Jerry Yang – Yahoo’s co-founder – was announced as the new CEO, I was a little concerned, to say the least. I wrote:
The guy is 38 years old, he’s only worked at one company – ever, and he has been a senior executive at Yahoo during their losing battle to Google over the last six years. If Yahoo needs some new blood to shake the moss off the log, having the founder return as CEO doesn’t seem to be the right solution . . .Bringing Jerry Yang back seems a bit like the Politburo in the USSR in the 1970s – once the Premier died, they just elected another equally old, equally stodgy replacement who had an equally ineffective and short career at the helm.
So today, as Yahoo announces that Jerry Yang is relinquishing his head role, I have two things to say: first, I told you so. Second, under no circumstances should Yahoo hire *anyone* who has *any* current or prior association with Yahoo. It is time for change -change we can believe in! Personally, I’d love to see someone like Jonathan Rosenberg from Google or even Meg Whitman from eBay take the reigns. Not Susan Decker. Not Jonathan Rosenweig (probably spelling that wrong, but this is a ‘fly by the seat of my pants’ posting . . .). New blood. If Yahoo stands a chance to regain even the slightest aura of its past greatness, change has to come from the outside. That’s all I have to say – have I made my point clear?
tdwhalen
November 19, 2008 at 2:36 am
Agreed and well said!