After that, it was pretty much over for slow-footed Yahoo, trying to navigate a fast-changing internet landscape with uninspired CEOs like Carol Bartz and Scott Thompson at the helm. In periodically leaked missives, executives bemoaned that Yahoo was spreading itself too thin over too many lackluster products. Without a steadier hand from its founders, Yahoo had lost its way culturally as much as strategically. It was fat with layers of accountants, lawyers, and product managers, people whose job it was to mitigate risk, rather than take it. Yang didn’t respond to requests for comment, and Filo declined to comment through a spokeswoman.
The founders did make big contributions. In 2005, Yang helped orchestrate what would be the company’s best deal: the sale of its businesses in China to Alibaba, along with a $1 billion investment. He deserves tons of credit for that. It’s also likely that his voice was not always heard. In 2012, Yang left the company’s board of directors after its disastrous decision to hire PayPal’s Scott Thompson as CEO and then promptly fire him upon discovering he fibbed on his résumé. For his part, Filo has been the picture of corporate loyalty in an age sorely lacking it. He joined the Yahoo board when Mayer took over the company and, by all accounts, remains an inspirational figure.
But by that time, the mistakes of the past loomed too large. Perhaps there was a short window of opportunity for Mayer to bet the company on a bold acquisition or a new product, but it closed fast. She made strange moves, spending a huge chunk of her figurative and literal capital on a $1.1 billion deal for the also-ran social network Tumblr in 2013. Tumblr, like so many other Yahoo acquisitions (Flickr, et al.) went nowhere fast, perhaps because there were not enough nutrients in the Yahoo soil for any startup to thrive.
Others have chronicled more of Mayer’s mistakes. But now it’s all ancient internet history, to be parceled out and puzzled over by business school students. It’s time for us to mourn Yahoo. Sorry, I mean—Yahoo!