Is Yahoo's CEO Really In A Position To Tell Google What It Needs To Do?

from the i-get-paid-for-interestingness dept

I have to admit, I thought it was pretty amusing to see this headline in the BBC:

Yahoo chief Carol Bartz sees trouble for Google.

What else is she supposed to say? Of course she's going to slag the company that totally destroyed Yahoo at its own game, but the real question is why would anyone listen? Yahoo isn't exactly in the position of being able to say what Google should be doing, given that every single move that Yahoo has tried against Google has failed -- sometimes miserably. Bartz's comments get more amusing the further the article goes on:

"Google is going to have a problem because Google is only known for search..."

Well, I guess she should know. While she won't admit it, people still tend to think of Yahoo as search as well. And Yahoo spent so much time trying to diversify that if they don't think about Yahoo as search these days... they just think about Yahoo as being a confused jumble of sites that don't do much. In the meantime, despite her claims, it does appear that Google has expanded well beyond search. AdSense (which is about other content sites) makes them lots of money. Pretty much everyone I know uses Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Maps rather than the Yahoo equivalents. I'm trying to think of what other areas Yahoo has expanded into that have been successful for the company.

But the funniest statement of all:

"Google has to grow a company the size of Yahoo every year to be interesting."

I don't think that anyone judges Google based on how "interesting" they are. Is that the metric they use at Yahoo? Does that explain the $47 million she apparently made last year? Because she made Yahoo so interesting? Well, I guess it should be admitted that Yahoo is the company that is trying (and so far, failing) to patent "interestingness," so perhaps she's just urging Google to be interesting for the sake of a future patent fight? In the meantime, I would assume that, at Google, they judge the company based on how much money it makes -- and on that front, it appears to be cleaning Yahoo's clock on a pretty regular basis.

As for "growing a company the size of Yahoo every year," that becomes easier and easier as Yahoo gets smaller and smaller.

Filed Under: carol bartz, competition, interesting
Companies: google, yahoo