Whither Yahoo

Gord Hotchkiss shares his perspective on the recent return of Jerry Yang to the helm at Yahoo in Yahoo Yang = Google (Page Brin)?

He has some insightful things to say about the leadership styles of the major players. Sergey Brin and Larry Page come off as the consummate micro-managers. But much like Bill Gates their collective brilliance is able to give back to the organization far more than their meddling takes away. If it helps them understand what really makes things tick, a little code slinging or architecture tweaks by the founders is a small price to pay.

Jerry Yang and David Filo, on the other hand, did not stay intimately involved at Yahoo. You can't blame them for cashing out early. They never have to work again so it only follows that they would work on things that interest them, and I doubt that search engines are their first love. As Hotchkiss points out, just the opposite is true at Google, where the search experience is a sacred cow, the center of everything they do.

This is a fateful moment for Yahoo. As long as the search experience remains the dominant factor in where people go on the Internet, Yahoo is in trouble.