-->

Who"s davidlian?

My photo
davidlian is an ultra-geeky chinese dude that works for a technology PR agency. He loves fiddling with techno-toys, plays Warhammer 40K, and shoots pictures wherever he goes. Here, he rants about PR, Technology and anything else. Don't expect balance and un-biased, he ain't no journalist. Anything said on this blog are solely davidlian's personal views. Don't confuse them with company mantra, client's views or views of any organisation he may be part of.

Categories

Thursday, January 15, 2009

New Yahoo! CEO suspects too much

I think I may have learned a new line for those long Q&As I occassionally have to write as part of the job.

Carol Bartz when introduced as the new Yahoo! CEO today said (and I predict these words will come back to famously haunt her):

"I suspect I have the brainpower to understand media. I also suspect there are people here that can help jump-start my education."
That's right. "I suspect". Almost as good as last year's quote of the year: "looks like me, sounds like me." Somewhere between saying "I don't really know what I'm getting into" without admitting that "I'm possibly out of my league."

I've always liked Yahoo! as a company. I make it a point to search with Yahoo! almost as often as I search with Google - if only to equally contribute to both company's coffers with my eyeball. However, Ms. Bartz's reply to the journalist's question does not my confidence invoke.

Yahoo!'s not really in bad shape. It's still got a huge share of eyeballs and a couple of really top notch properties (like Flickr) and services (like Delicious). And Yahoo! Pipes is amazing too.

What the company needs is a gameplan. Something to tie everything together and make people love the company again. And I suspect that suspecting will not be good enough. It's time to deal with the facts and the reality of the situation, and get the game going, Yahoo!

2 comments:

Erna said...

Autodesk has proved to have improved over the years. Am also impressed that Bartz rehired her successor, Bass, after she'd fired him.

She put aside her ego, admitted she needed his help. I think that's rare for someone at her level. So kasi canlah haha. Turning Yahoo around is not going to be easy. Not at all.

davidlian said...

Seriously, I thought Bartz was one fire-cracker of CEO at Autodesk. I'm just wondering why the uncertainty of her words when talking about her chances at Yahoo! She was always forthright and straight to the point :) But I do like her and I do think she'll be good for Yahoo!.