AFI BLOG: Media and Technology

Silicon Alley Insider

We like Terry Semel. He was friendly to us in the brief period in which our Yahoo-Analyst / Yahoo-CEO careers overlapped. As Yahoo shareholders, we also enjoyed Terry’s early years as CEO, when Yahoo worked its way through its post-bubble collapse and the stock jumped about 7X. So we will begin this brief essay on Terry’s horrific mistakes by giving credit where it is due.

Terry got to Yahoo at the time when it needed his skills and experience the most: When it was reeling from the bubble-bursting and in desperate need of both adult supervision and crisp decisionmaking. In Terry’s early years, the company turned its display advertising business around, and–for a brief, happy period–almost regained its 1990s mojo.

Alas…

Then came a series of mistakes that has left Yahoo in today’s desperate straits, barely able to control its own destiny. Terry doesn’t bear direct responsibility for every one of these errors, but he was ultimately responsible for all of them:

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