Yahoo Needs To Go Private To Right Itself

from the staying-public-is-dangerous dept

Mon, Jun 23rd 2008 3:08pm — Mike Masnick

Pretty much everyone now recognizes that Yahoo needs to reinvent itself these days. Its image and brand have been severely tarnished due to both poor management choices, an inability to compete successfully with search advertising and (of course) the fight concerning the possibility of a Microsoft merger. But, of course, all of this has only made the spotlight shine even more brightly on management -- which makes it much, much harder for the company to reinvent itself. So, I'm in agreement with those who think the real answer is for some private equity firms to take Yahoo private. Outside of the glare (and short-term focus) of the public markets, Yahoo might have the chance to reinvent itself for real, rather than being pulled in a different direction every few months. It can then return to the public markets later, or potentially sell itself again to another company under more favorable terms.

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Filed Under: private, private equity, public, reinvent
Companies: yahoo

9 Comments

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some old guy, 23 Jun 2008 @ 3:52pm

well
I'm not big on public ownership anyways, but if a company cant compete "cause its public" then shouldnt the same go for any company? Why isn't every company better of private?
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- dorpass, 23 Jun 2008 @ 4:32pm
  
  Re: well
  If you look at world market, it is dominated by privately owned companies and corporations. Still, not every company is better off private, especially in the initial stages where large funding is necessary to get it going.
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  - Anonymous Coward, 23 Jun 2008 @ 4:47pm
    
    Re: Re: well
    For a minute I was like WHAT THE HELL DORPUS IS MAKING SENSE!? then I realised your dorpASS and are one of the many that realises Dorpus is useless.
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    - some old guy, 23 Jun 2008 @ 4:54pm
      
      Re: Re: Re: well
      ya, that threw me off for a sec too. I was expecting to be trolled, but there was no punchline! Then I caught the (mis)spelling, and it all made sense.
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GeneralEmergency (profile), 23 Jun 2008 @ 4:58pm

Yahoo: Distant, last place, "also ran"...
Maybe I'm the odd duck here, but I've never used Yahoo much other than maps.yahoo.com.

The silly, backwoods yokel inferring name always put me off.

Google.... now there's a solid edifice of a name for a technology company.

(Do I get extra points for sarcasm?)
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Roy, 23 Jun 2008 @ 6:48pm

yahoo is actually good for a few things.
tv listings load much quicker on yahoo than tvguide.com for me.
and Yahoo Answers, which is more successful than it should be since it's not the first to come up with such an idea.
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some old guy, 23 Jun 2008 @ 6:50pm

lol
yes, you get points for irony there. I avoided yahoo cause it aimed to be the slums of the net, and they achieved that goal. Never really wanted to be associated with rednecks. And rednecks love yahoo. So maybe its more than just their name, it was also their advertising. Just watching one of their ads made me feel dirty. Google tho... well, I've never seen a google ad. And instead of trolling for rednecks on their main page, they showed class by never ever even so much as having a single ad on the most viewed page on the net. That's class, even if they do have a silly sounding moniker.
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Anonymous Coward, 24 Jun 2008 @ 6:51am

I would love to see M$ spend $30-40 billion to go from a distant 3rd place in internet search to a distant 2nd.
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OD42J, 28 Apr 2009 @ 10:16am

ffff
fff
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