All Things Digital

Skip to main content.

BoomTown

Monday, April 13, 2009

Bartz of 100 Days: Tough Talk to Microsoft Talks

400-173_150x150

Here’s an interesting irony–Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz will have her 99th day in office on the very one that the Internet giant will announce its first-quarter earnings: April 21, 2009 at 2 p.m. PST.

Technically, it will mean that she has been running Yahoo for 100 days, a time when most administrations get their first evaluation.

Thus, if it’s good enough for President Obama, it’s good enough for Bartz!

While most expect the results for the quarter to be weak, due to the econalypse, the overall verdict from BoomTown’s needling of Yahoos to give me info on their new leader recently: Love, love, love Bartz’s innate decisiveness, and wanting more of the same.

Read More »

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Where the Chickens Would Come Home to Roost, If Yahoo and Microsoft Ever Did Do a Search Deal

In Yahoo’s fourth-quarter earnings conference call earlier this week, new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz went out of her way to ho-hum all over the possibility of a search deal with Microsoft.

Of course, it was all cooked up and well rehearsed by Bartz, who knows how to play the expectations game as well as anyone else, especially as she endeavors to come up to speed on the various prospects for Yahoo going forward.

It’s called, um, playing chicken.

Read More »

Friday, December 5, 2008

Yahoo CEO Countdown, 26 Days to Go: As Chernin Declines, Will a Dark Horse Emerge?

With Yahoo board Chairman Roy Bostock reportedly assuring investors and others that the company will have a CEO in place by the end of the year, it seems prudent for BoomTown to initiate an official Yahoo CEO Countdown.

After all, this column had a 100-Day No-Sacred-Cows Vision Quest to mark the time that Jerry Yang said he needed to give Yahoo a top-to-bottom look-see when he took over last summer as CEO.

So here’s today’s update: No Peter Chernin and a lot of thorny issues for other candidates.

Read More »

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Yahoo Earnings: What to Expect When You’re Not Expecting (Much)

Here’s a bright spot in Yahoo’s third-quarter earnings announcement later today: Sources told BoomTown that the company will not announce a specific number of layoffs tomorrow, although it will give an overall percentage of employees and costs to be cut.

In other words, you get to practice your long division and multiplication skills! Fun!

Other than that, of course, when Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang gets on the horn at at 2 p.m. Pacific time, the outlook is likely to be a wall-to-wall glumfest.

Read More »

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Who Has Stolen the Old Jerry Yang? (But No Need to Return Him!)

Could the new and improved Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang actually manage to beat back the proxy fight being waged against him by activist investor Carl Icahn?

It increasingly looks that way, with only 12 days to go until Yahoo’s annual meeting on August 1.

But exactly which Yang will be running Yahoo, if he does win, is probably the most important question shareholders need to ask.

Would that be the seemingly energetic Yang of the past two weeks, invigorated by the battle with Icahn and his new best friend and Yahoo foe, Microsoft?

Or will it be the other Yang?

Read More »

Thursday, December 27, 2007

My Predictions for 2008: That There Won’t Be Any From BoomTown!

Predictions, schmedictions.

As a holiday gift to all readers, BoomTown will refrain from making any big pronouncements about what’s coming in 2008 in the tech sector, because, um, well, I have no idea what’s coming in 2008 in the tech sector. No one could have Miss Cleo-ed all the twists and turns of 2007, for certain.

Could [...]

Read More »

Wednesday, September 19, 2007

Day 64: SCANDAL! Yahoo Exec Questions BoomTown Accounting of Vision Quest!

I know I am annoying the heck out of Yahoo bigwigs with my obsessive countdown of CEO Jerry Yang’s 100-day promise to examine Yahoo from top to bottom, which I previously officially dubbed “No-Sacred-Cow Vision Quest.”

But one exec, who shall remain nameless (you know who you are!), questioned my accounting of it. Specifically, he [...]

Read More »

Latest BoomTown Videos

More Videos »

About Kara

Kara Swisher started covering digital issues for The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau in 1997 and also wrote the BoomTown column about the sector. With Walt Mossberg, she co-produces and co-hosts D: All Things Digital, a major high-tech and media conference.

Read more »

Ethics Statement

Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.

Read more »