In his internal memo, company executive Brad Garlinghouse argued that Yahoo, whose financial performance has flagged in recent quarters, has lost its business focus and identity.
As described here:
Garlinghouse said that Yahoo's problems stem, in part, from trying to do too much, saying his company lacks a cohesive vision, is reactive and is separated into silos that frequently don't talk to each other and fight to protect their turf. "We've known this for years, talk about it incessantly, but do nothing to fundamentally address it," he said."I've heard the strategy described as spreading peanut butter across the myriad opportunities that continue to evolve in the online world," Garlinghouse wrote. "The result: a thin layer of investment spread across everything we do and thus we focus on nothing in particular."
As I suggested at the top of this post, part of the reason for Yahoo's current predicament is that it has been around since 1994. That's 12 years of crushing pressure to grow revenue and keep up with lightning-fast changes in a hyper-competitive and unpredictable market. In an environment like that -- especially if you have a talented and adaptable workforce -- it's tempting to lay bets all over the table.
The trouble is, sooner or later you lose track of what you're betting on and how you're doing. Yahoo is like a gambler in a casino, where they don't have clocks. OK, Yahoo really isn't like that. I just wanted to bring up the clock thing because I've always thought it was weird. Haven't the casinos ever heard of watches? Besides, if you're serving people free drinks, after awhile you could plant Big Ben next to their slot machine and they wouldn't notice.
But back to Yahoo. Garlinghouse merely wrote what many investors and tech pros have long believed: Yahoo needs to rediscover its focus, dump the extraneous business lines, and buy a casino.
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