Will new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer be the guiding light the company needs to get back on the right track?
This is a tough call, Jim Cramer said Tuesday on CNBC’s “Mad Money.” Especially because he liked the idea of interim CEO Ross Levinsohn at the helm, both for his multiple web shop successes and his discipline.
But it was only after Mayer got appointed toher new post at Yahoo that Cramer realized she was the driving force and inspiration behind a number of Google’s most coveted concepts. “The simplicity was positively [Apple CEO Steve] Jobs-like,” he said. Not only that, but he realized that Apple’s new voice-activated Siri function was also a product of her work.
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“Now, Yahoo has a ton of catching up to do,” he said. Just like with AOL, Cramer noted that some stories surfacing on Yahoo suffer from a lack of quality editing, revision and credibility. He added that the firm is notorious for being a difficult place to work and that the company needs to jump on the social, mobile and cloud strategy bandwagon that so many other tech titans have embraced.
Maybe Mayer can turn all of that around, he suggested.
In addition, the firm has a handful of assets that Cramer believes Levinsohn was prepared to monetize. “Maybe Mayer can follow through on that,” he said. “Although Levinsohn did have a real bead on that process.”
But ultimately, the “Mad Money” host said he refuses to believe things at Yahoo are as bad as some analysts have claimed, adding that the website still thrives off of customer loyalty and speed, and that he himself still makes frequent use of the search engine — especially when he’s on the road.
In sum, Cramer hopes Mayer will manage to successfully unite the company and implement the technological changes that Yahoo desperately needs. “Either way, you know what Yahoo needs most of all?” he asked. “Someone to stay on as CEO. Anyone. At least for a couple of years.”
So, what’s the bottom line?
The shock factor has got to diminish at Yahoo, he said. And the steady factor must come to the fore. “If Mayer can pull [all of] that off, I’d call it a job well done no matter what else happens.”
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When this story was published, Yahoo and CNBC were engaged in a content-sharing partnership and Cramer's charitable trust owned Apple.
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