It’s natural to think that Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ:YHOO) employees have had about enough. With a number of controversial changes at the top, its still-born brush with an acquisition by Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT), declining market shares, the tortuous negotiations with Alibaba, and torrid competition may have all served to undermine morale at this once premier web property.
That said, there’s no denying employees’ relief at Yahoo finally getting its act together, and making the first move towards the path of recovery – appointing a quality CEO, in the eminently personable and equally competent Marissa Mayer, formerly of Google. In all humility, Google’s very big loss is entirely a sorely needed gain for Yahoo.
A very interesting picture of MM is doing the rounds on the Internet. It shows her with bold letters ‘HOPE’ pencilled underneath, and is credited to Yahoo employee Dave Dunstan. That’s fine, but what could Yahoo employees hope for?
First of all she brings a wealth of experience in search and location from her years at Google Inc(NASDAQ:GOOG). She is a whiz at boosting consumer interaction, and may be expected to possibly revamp all of Yahoo’s products from the ground up. She is ruthless with non-performing products, and may be expected to take a scalpel to any of Yahoo’s duds. She may even be expected to revamp the executive team at Yahoo, and perhaps even get in some more hand-picked insiders from Google. As for Yahoo’s long-suffering shareholders, they at last may see their shares on the path of recovery. Ok, Ok, forget for the time being that she is going to make a very large sum of money, but if she delivers, it’ll all be worth it.
So, MM, how was work?
Let’s find out from the memo she issued to employees after she took over the reins at Yahoo. This paragraph, in my view, is the crux:
The company has been through a lot of change in the past few months, leaving many open questions around strategy and how to move forward. I am sensitive to this. While I have some ideas, I need to develop a more informed perspective before making strategy or direction changes. In the meantime, please do not stop. You are doing important work. Please don’t stop. If you have questions or concerns about whether to continue or not, please ask. However, with the exception of a few things that might heavily constrain us in the future, the answer is most likely: “Yes, keep moving.”
