More Videos
- Cisco Jumps; Rest of Market to Follow?
- Call It 'Microsoft Math'
- Intel in the Anti-Trust Crosshairs, but Why?
- Apple Apps—Now More Than 100K
- WoW Fights New Front in China
- Smart Phone Competition Heats Up. Again.
- A Tale of Two Smart Phone Makers
- Avatar Hype Soars Thanks to Tech
- AMD's Ruiz Gets Tripped by Idle Chit-Chat
- Amazon is to eBay What Google is to Yahoo
- Tommy Lee, Medical Tourism and Nasty Santa, Your Emails
- U.S. Markets Gain 3% for the Week Despite 10.2% Unemployment
- Disney's 'Carol' Tests Widest 3-D Release Ever
- Stimulus II? Jobs Tax Credit=Cash For Clunkers
- Rockwell Automation Earnings: What Options Are Saying
- Gold Will Touch Higher Lows and Higher Highs: Analyst
- Is Misery Alive And Well in Your Office?
- Consumers Haven't Changed, They Are Just Pickier
- Watch Foreclosures, Seriously
- For the Jobless, 10% is Harder Than Before
- Week Ahead: Stocks Search for Catalyst in Quiet Week
- Outlook: Dollar Likely to Ride Higher on Bleak Jobs Report
- Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Says Net Income Tripled
- Cramer: Earnings, IPOs Dominate Next Week
- Buying Fear: How to Own Volatility
- Administration Rejects Plan to Buy Fannie Mae Credits
- Consumers Haven't Changed —They Just Got Pickier
- Want the Homebuyer's Tax Credit? Here Are Some Tips
RSS FEED
Tech Check
Text Size 
No more mincing words, no more chipping around the edges: Jerry Yang has made a mockery of the vaunted company he helped create. And now he's creating havoc where it otherwise didn't need to be.
 |
There's a not so fine line between hubris and fiduciary responsibility. Yang has plenty of the former and is sorely lacking in the latter. He has a fiduciary responsibility to get as much money as he can for his company. But he also ought to know a good -- even great -- deal when it's presented to him.
Of course, if shareholders are frustrated, they have only themselves to blame after squandering the opportunity to vote out Yang and his board of subordinates when they had the chance at last summer's shareholder meeting.
Why the tough assessment tonight? Because Yang is on the wires pining once again for a deal with Microsoft [MSFT
Loading...
()
].
"People who know me know I don't have an ego about remaining independent versus not remaining independent," he reportedly said at the Web 2.0 conference. He also says he remains "open-minded" about selling Yahoo's search business to Microsoft, but concedes there is no "new news" on talks between the two companies.
Yahoo Saga
- Yahoo's Yang says Microsoft Deal Still Best Option
- Google Scraps Yahoo Deal Amid Antitrust Concerns
- More Boohoo Than Yahoo for Yang
Are you kidding me? Microsoft offered to buy the whole enchilada for $47.5 billion at the beginning of the year, a staggering 70 percent premium back then. Yet, Yang and team held out for more. And now, billions of market cap wiped away since, he comes to the conclusion that it was a good deal after all?
It'd be one thing if Yang was dealing from a position of strength. But Yahoo's been beaten down so badly these last few years that "strength" is simply no longer a part of the equation.
Yang was acting like a 50-year old former, star high school quarterback, embarrassingly clutching the glory days long since passed. And the more he held out, the more he blustered for a higher price, the more embarrassing it got.
And yet the negotiations and the posturing continued. Yang and team have ridden these shares down to a recent low of $11 and change. Their only pops north come not from its own business fundamentals, but from the off chance that the company will seal some kind of partnership with someone to get this company back on track.
Good luck. It botched the Microsoft deal; it can't even get a deal together with a company in arguably worse shape than itself: Time Warner's [TWX
Loading...
()
] AOL; and just today, Google [GOOG
Loading...
()
] rescinded its proposed ad-sharing partnership with Yahoo [YHOO
Loading...
()
] because of ongoing Justice Department anti-trust concerns.
 |
And now, tonight, after all this time, Yang comes to the conclusion which he should've recognized at the outset: that a deal with Microsoft is Yahoo's best option. Trouble is, the delays will likely cost Yahoo's shareholders $20 billion or so, and that's only if Microsoft comes back to the table. Which it should because both these companies actually really do need each other.
Meantime, kiss that $34 a share offer goodbye. Yang would be lucky to attract half that at this point. A piece of advice to Team Yahoo: Don't tell the world a deal with Microsoft makes sense, or is the best deal around -- at the right price. Pick up the phone, dial 425 882 8080 and ask for Steve Ballmer's office. I'm sure he'll take the call. Just ignore the snickers and smirks and get a deal done. You owe it to your shareholders. And your legacy.
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes