Yahoo has had a rough time since Marissa Mayer became the company’s CEO in 2010. By Yahoo, I mean Mayer’s Yahoo, the one that she recently, in a letter from Alternative Investment Management & Research, got told would be better off managed by Masayoshi Son, CEO of Japanese cell phone carrier and owner of Sprint in the United States SoftBank.
“We think that Yahoo would be far better off under the stewardship and vision of Mr. Son than under Yahoo’s current top management”. Ouch right? First, you get told that the investor in Yahoo, which AIMR is, thinks that you’d be better off under someone else’s control, and then follows up with not being either brave enough or rude enough (you pick) to call Yahoo’s ‘top management’ by name(s).
The reasoning, however, is not so unreasonable. SoftBank apparently is in partnership currently with Yahoo Japan, and something they are doing is making those investors happy. The letter quoted above was sent both to Yahoo and the SoftBank on Monday (yesterday) the 29th. Another thing to know about SoftBank is that they supply both mobile and Internet service for their customers, and would be a great company for Yahoo to work with and under.
The issue that I, and some of you readers, may have is that this seems to be two things, other than a suggestion of improving leadership. It might seem like people have been saying to Mayer that not only is she doing the right thing with acquiring companies but that she should leave it to someone else entirely. This could also be an instance of ‘oh a woman’s running the company? Let’s fix that’ syndrome, especially regarding technology companies.
AIMR also said that Masayoshi Son of SoftBank would also do a better job of managing Yahoo’s current massive mound of cash to invest and spend. That seems reasonable, right? We think so too. But it’s still off-putting that people want Marissa Mayer out of her top dog position at Yahoo in favor of foreign guidance. What do you think about handing Yahoo’s reins over to the folks across the Atlantic, just like Sprint did a while back? Let us know down below.