Scott Moore, who runs the Yahoo Media Group, sat down with BoomTown at the company’s Santa Monica headquarters last week to talk about the future direction of content at the company.
While the Media unit has had its ups and downs over the years about exactly what it should be–such as the controversial Hollywood-esque Lloyd Braun strategy–one thing that Yahoo has consistently done well is to aggregate and distribute its own and others’ content.
If BoomTown had any doubt that Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang was going to knuckle under to the public kneecapping given to him by the activist investor Carl “The Shark” Icahn and Microsoft CEO Steve “My Way or the Highway” Ballmer earlier this week, that was firmly disabused in a bracing conversation we had yesterday.
Microsoft’s not the only one backing billionaire investor Carl Icahn in his quest to unseat Yahoo’s leadership and board–major Yahoo investor Gordon Crawford told Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang in a face-to-face meeting last week that he was seriously considering voting against Yahoo in the looming proxy fight.
The troubled meeting that took place last Tuesday in Los Angeles between Capital Research Global Investors’ Crawford and Yang–accompanied by three Yahoo board members–could be seen as a portent of what is to come at the company’s annual meeting on August 1.
And those signs are definitely not good for Yahoo’s current leaders.
Yahoo leadership, trying to stave off a major clash at its annual meeting on Aug. 1 with activist investor Carl Icahn, is contemplating offering him two board seats to assuage him, said several sources close to the situation.
The problem? Icahn, who has put up his own new slate of directors to replace Yahoo’s entire current board as part of a proxy fight, wants at least four, sources said.
Like the zombies in “Night of the Living Dead” who will not die, the notion of a big, sloppy deal for Microsoft to buy Yahoo is revived yet again in an article in The Wall Street Journal today.
Unfortunately for both Yahoo and Microsoft, it mostly serves to point out once again just how messy and pathetic the proceedings have been and continues to be.
But, as to the central idea, that Microsoft is aching to do a multi-part deal with various partners that would render Yahoo asunder, BoomTown is altogether dubious that this will ever come to pass.
Sorry for the delay, but we’ll finally start posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May in their entirety.
Kicking off the proceedings will be what most of the attendees at the conference told us they considered their favorite interview, which Walt Mossberg and I did with News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch.
Here’s Part 2 of 6 of the Murdoch interview.
Apparently, according to Yahoo, Microsoft is as clever and deceptive as the buff and gun-toting Angelina Jolie in the new film “Wanted.”
BoomTown will get to that later. But with Yahoo shares hovering close to $20 a share, Microsoft has certainly got to be thrilled that the sweetened search ad deal it is currently preparing–including forking over about $10 billion for one-third of the company–is getting cheaper by the minute.
Sorry for the delay, but we’ll finally start posting all the interviews from the sixth D: All Things Digital conference that took place in late May in their entirety.
Kicking off the proceedings will be what most of the attendees at the conference told us they considered their favorite interview, which Walt Mossberg and I did with News Corp. Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch.
Here’s Part 1 of 6 of the Murdoch interview.
So exactly when will Microsoft and Yahoo really start talking again?
Much sooner than later, if investors have their way.
While the pair have not had any substantive talks as yet, despite reports they had, I would expect pressure from those shareholders (if not a dose of sanity in the face of the Google juggernaut) will bring them to the table within the next week.
While the software giant has no interest in buying all of the Internet portal, under a scenario being suggested to Microsoft by major Yahoo shareholders, a more substantial search deal could effectively give Microsoft control over Yahoo.
Right now, Yahoo shares are flirting with a dangerous threshold of below $20 a share–at this moment, shares are at $20.88.
Of course, the last time Yahoo went under the $20 level is when Microsoft mounted its takeover bid for the company, which was unveiled Feb. 1.
“Depressed does not even begin to describe it,” said one major Yahoo shareholder, in response to BoomTown’s query about what the mood was among Yahoo investors.
Oh, Scott! Oh, Tapan! Want an extra office? Perhaps a giant sword?
Of the four powerful direct reports to former Yahoo Network division head Jeff Weiner–Front Door and Network Services’ Tapan Bhat, Brad Garlinghouse, who heads Yahoo’s communications and communities arenas, Media Group head Scott Moore and Yahoo Search’s Vish Makhijani–it seems only two are sticking around for now in the current state of extreme flux at Yahoo.
That would be Moore and Bhat, who are being quiet–very quiet–as the new reorg chugs into place next week.
Company in crisis? Employees morale plummeting? Shareholders in revolt? Stock slumping? Barbarians at the gate?
The perfect time to get out the Rubik’s Cube for yet another Yahoo reorganization!
BoomTown now has the outline of the likely sweeping management changes at Yahoo, to be announced next week by the troubled Internet company.
The reorg, which will drastically change the structure of management, explains a lot about the spate of recent departures by top execs at the company.
As BoomTown reported earlier today, well-regarded top Yahoo techie Qi Lu will be leaving, in a move to be announced today or tomorrow by the troubled Internet company.
One Yahoo insider, who characterized Lu as a “rock star” and highly regarded, said the departure was a “blow” that will be devastating to the engineering organization at Yahoo.
It also looks as though the departure of Search SVP Vish Makhijani will also be announced today or tomorrow, although the fate of Brad Garlinghouse, the SVP who heads communications and communities, is still undetermined but precarious.
My special BoomTown Yahoo tip inbox is filling up fast this week from Yahoo employees–who, by the way, seem to like to use Gmail as their secret one–all buzzing about the next shoe to drop.
That clodhopper would be, of course, which major exec will leave the troubled Internet company, all due to a major reorg that is about the hit the company within the next weeks.
After the recent departure of Network division EVP Jeff Weiner and Chief Data Officer Usama Fayyad–along with the flashier exit of Flickr’s Co-Founders Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake–several sources tell BoomTown that Search and Advertising Technology group EVP Qi Lu is the next on his way out too.
Will there be a mano-a-mano in the Yahoo boardroom about what to do about the moribund stock at Yahoo, as the company moves closer to its annual meeting on Aug. 1?
If major shareholders have anything to do with it, there will be.
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 »
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.
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
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