We Were Yahoo!: From Internet Pioneer to the Trillion Dollar Loss of Google and Facebook

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Description

Only any person from the corporate inside could provide an explanation for how Yahoo!—one of the crucial greatest brands in corporate history—could rise to the greatest height ever seen in American business…and then crash into oblivion. 

For somebody paying attention, the beginning of the end for Yahoo! began with decisions made by the first team of executives at the same time as the company was once on its way up, which set the stage for horrific decisions made by subsequent generations of Yahoo! leadership. Most decisions were either pure incompetence or just lack of vision by CEOs from 2001 to the present.

Twenty-one years after its incorporation and sixteen years after its stock peak, Yahoo sold for 96% less than its value on January 3, 2000, when it had closed at an all-time high of $118.75 per share, resulting in a market capitalization of $120 billion. Wall Street valued Yahoo!, at that time in business less than six years, higher than it did Disney, News Corporation, and Comcast combined. Also on that day, the iPhone was once more than seven years away from launch, Google was once four years from its IPO, Amazon was once hemorrhaging money, and Mark Zuckerberg was once still in high school!

At the end of 2016, the top seven businesses on the list of the highest-valued companies on this planet by market capitalization include Apple at #1, Alphabet (Google’s Parent Company) at #2, Amazon.com at #5, and Facebook at #7. Those companies combined are valued in excess of $2 trillion more than the price Verizon paid to acquire Yahoo!

Yahoo!’s story is one of missed strategies, failed opportunities, and poor execution. Early decisions to de-emphasize search features, undervalue Google, and overplay Yahoo’s hand in the Facebook negotiations haunted the remainder of the company’s existence. In addition, factors outdoor of Yahoo’s regulate—most notably how irrational expectations of Wall Street created an environment where short-term decisions were made at the expense of the long-term good. 

The story of Yahoo! is a cautionary tale not intended for the faint of heart. 

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