Yahoo’s time line:
- 1998: Yahoo refused to acquire Google for $1 million.
- 2000: Yahoo’s value peaked at $100 billion.
- 2002: Yahoo realized they made a huge mistake not acquiring Google and offered $3 billion. Google wanted $5 billion. They weren’t able to make a deal.
- 2008: Microsoft offered $50 billion to acquire Yahoo. Yahoo rejected their offer.
- 2016: Verizon is looking to acquiring Yahoo for less than $5 billion. Meanwhile, Google has been valued at $550 billion.
What happened?
You can point to a lot of different things:
- Mismanagement: There are plenty of people to blame.
- The economy: The 2000 tech bubble didn’t help.
- Their identity: Were they a search engine? Did they sell ad space?
- No innovation: We haven’t seen any new hardware or software for quite some time.
In the end, Yahoo spent too much time thinking about how to fix their company instead of focusing on solving interesting problems for its customers.
It became clear when 500 million accounts were reportedly stolen this year; and there is evidence to suggest that Yahoo knew about this in 2014.
That’s what happens when you lead from behind. Eventually, the world catches up.
But there is a lesson to learn: No organization is too big to stop caring for the people they are serving.
[Bonus lesson: Nothing lasts forever. The Beatles, arguably the biggest rock band of all time, are becoming less relevant each day. If you’re a teenager, can you name one band member?]
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