5 Things Yahoo’s New CEO Must Do Now
OK, Yahoo, now you’ve done it. You’ve gone with PayPal tech whiz Scott Thompson for your new CEO, and that’s fine.
Picking a technologist as your new leader wasn’t what everybody wanted you to do (if the market is any indication). But the move is a clear bet, and Thompson himself says he wants the company to innovate again. The question now is: Do you have enough confidence in your choice to play the hand without folding?
Yahoo’s stock fell yesterday after the news, and it’s struggling today. Scuttlebut says that’s because investors wanted Yahoo’s board to move closer to either selling the company or actually following through on turning the brand into a media powerhouse — a goal that eluded previous CEO Carol Bartz, who was fired last fall.
Thompson is a technology guy, not a business or media guy, so it’s obvious why Wall Street is disappointed. It’s also been said he has no “turnaround” experience, and rejuvinating a digital brand is a nigh-impossible task. But the board clearly liked what it saw in Thompson, who started at PayPal in 2005 as chief technology officer, then rose to president 2008.
PayPal grew a lot during that time, but so did online commerce in general. Now Thompson has a chance to prove it wasn’t a fluke, and Yahoo has another shot — probably its last — to revive its brand. That must be its plan in picking Thompson, though to get the company moving in the right direction again he’ll need to make some big strategic moves, some of them painful. Check out our recommendations in the gallery below.
1. Get Back Into Search

Yahoo partnered with Microsoft to have Bing power its search engine a couple of years ago, part of a deal that let Yahoo run advertising for both. While the arrangement may make sense from a financial standpoint, it robs Yahoo of direct control over one of its primary products, and strengthen's Bing's brand more than Yahoo's. Sure, most people familiar with tech were using Google or Bing anyway, but the move basically told them to never come back.
Those tech-savvy people are influencers, and Yahoo needs to win them back if it's ever going to grow again. Ending its soul-leasing deal with Microsoft would free Yahoo up to innovate in one area most associated with the brand. Yes, Google is the 400-megaton gorilla in the room, but ceding the search-engine war when you're primary business is advertising is like saying you'll fight, but you're leaving the heavy weapons at home.
Click here to view this gallery.
More About: bing, carol bartz, Google, Opinion, paypal, Scott Thompson, trending, Yahoo




