Yahoo CEO buys startups aggressively: old businesses crave new energy

Yahoo CEO Marissa has been trying to inject fresh blood into the company since he took office last year, according to a printed edition of The New York Times published April 8, hoping to create an entrepreneurial atmosphere in this senile enterprise and attract more talented people to join. However, because Yahoo has been in the past after the acquisition of start-up companies have not seen results, the plan created a lot of obstacles.

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Have a bad reputation

Since the helm of Yahoo, Marissa (Marissa Mayer) has been trying to convince users and employees that the company, already a Silicon Valley outcast, is still alive.

Despite being the pioneer of the internet, Yahoo has missed the wave of social media and mobile devices, and has watched Facebook and Google become a new information portal, not only because of the massive loss of advertising revenue, but also from the frequent poaching of employees.

At the heart of Ms. Mayer's revival plan is the acquisition of creative start-ups that incorporate them into Yahoo, bringing fresh blood and innovative ideas to the company. So since taking office last July, she has embarked on a massive acquisition, spending hundreds of millions of of dollars on 6 start-up companies.

But in many ways it is still not easy to achieve the desired goals.

That partly stems from Yahoo's previous exposure to acquisitions. Photo-sharing sites Flickr, social bookmarking tools dilicious have all been Yahoo's prey. As early as Instagram and Twitter became famous, the two companies had a reputation. But after the takeover, they were all doomed to become the perfect footnote to Yahoo's bad merger strategy.

Today, Ms. Mayer is vying with rivals such as Twitter, Google and Facebook, who are also looking for good technology and talent.

Progress

However, there are indications that she has made progress.

The entrepreneur says she has personally been involved in some mergers and acquisitions, with the emphasis on recruiting engineers with mobile thinking. She is also trying to reverse Yahoo's bad reputation in the eyes of many people in the industry, once Yahoo bought, whether talent or technology, will gradually wither.

Last month, the news of Yahoo's takeover of Summly became a headline in major media, as the founder of the mobile app developer was a 17-year-old head Boy. However, the amount of the acquisition is still not clear. Last October, Yahoo also bought mobile referral service stamped.

Robbie Stan, Robby Stein, who had sold stamped to Yahoo, said he had decided to take a shot at Yahoo, given Ms. Mayer's excellent resume at Google. Ms. Mayer once helped Google refine its search engine, and the simplicity of Google's home page was largely credited to her.

"After communicating with Marissa and others, I think it seems like a unique moment, and we are expected to have an impact on millions of people," he said. There are not many opportunities. "Stan said. Stan himself worked for Google and has collaborated with Ms. Mayer on the Gmail project.

Stan says his focus now is on "building a large mobile development center in New York" for Yahoo. He is determined to create a flexible entrepreneurial culture here, rather than making it an outpost for big businesses.

Stamped's work can be seen at random graffiti, the wall also hung a lot of whiteboard, easy to write down ideas and code. There is also a food-rich kitchen. The interior is plastered with posters of all kinds of software applications, some of the employees ' idols, some of them competitors. They have also deliberately installed two large-screen TVs designed to test prototype applications. and specially decorated a game room, which put a lot of chairs.

"I feel like I've got a full mandate to do my goal," he said. "Marissa and the executive team are all rooting for me," Stan said. ”

Mayer also acquired several other companies, including the network video service Ontheair, the network clipping service snip.it, the geo-positioning application developer Propeld, the social recommendation website Jybe.

Defects still exist

Despite a series of acquisitions, some in the industry believe that Mayer's plan still seems to be in the "rehearsal" phase. Reviving Yahoo's former glory will be the biggest technology industry comeback case since Steve Jobs's return to Apple in 1996.

Shortly after Ms. Mayer moved to Yahoo last year, an entrepreneur who had been negotiating with Facebook and Google reluctantly met with Yahoo. The consultant who led the meeting said that if Yahoo was completely ignored, the entrepreneur would inevitably be criticized by shareholders.

The entrepreneur said that at Facebook and Google, employees were so energetic that even the receptionist was registering with a brand new tablet, and executives were prepared to negotiate carefully, "even the size of the underwear I wore." "But the entrepreneur insists on anonymity because it is still at the stage of the takeover negotiations." Yahoo is completely different, the office is like a barren land. The check-in was done on a dusty, clunky computer, and the browsers were already obsolete. Worse, the company's executives have not only failed to read his resume, but even made no secret of it.

"I found Yahoo very depressing. He said, "It's disorganized, not even due diligence, and there's no obvious reason to attract people to work there." ”

He concludes: "To get me to work there, they're at least twice times as expensive as other companies." ”

Acquisition Plan

Yahoo, apparently not short of money, has profited 4.3 billion of dollars by selling the first Alibaba stock back to the Chinese internet company.

Analysts said Ms. Mayer needed a sensible takeover to quickly recruit good young developers to help Yahoo against Facebook and Google by leveraging their understanding of the mobile industry. The two companies have surpassed the once-leading Yahoo, becoming the largest display advertising company in the United States.

Ms. Mayer declined to be interviewed, but last October he told analysts that the company was looking for "small acquisitions" of about tens of millions of or hundreds of millions of dollars.

She has promised to some entrepreneurs that if they join Yahoo, they will be free to choose their place of work, can work in New York, San Francisco, Monica and other offices, without having to move to Sannivere headquarters.

But in addition to free snacks and cool electronic products, she needs to do more to get Yahoo back on track.

"If you are a high-quality start-up, Yahoo is still not the ideal destination." "It may not be your first choice," said Colin Gillis, an Internet analyst at Colin Gillis, the US investment firm. ”

Entrepreneurs believe that with the hands-on involvement of Ms. Mayer, Yahoo's mergers and acquisitions team will meet as many people as possible, especially those with mobile skills that can strengthen the core products of Yahoo, such as email, sports and finance.

She is also trying to prove that Yahoo will provide entrepreneurs with a good environment for development.

Historical shadows

Yahoo's last wave of mergers and acquisitions began 10 ago when it acquired one of the most promising internet assets, including photo-sharing sites Flickr, social bookmarking sites delicious and social calendar upcoming.org. But after that, many startups lost their energy, failed to get enough resources, and lacked clear goals.

"When we merged into Yahoo, I realized we were running at full speed and needed more servers." It's not easy to get these. We ended up on the side of 1.5. Delicious founder Yas Schacht (Joshua Schachter) said he sold the company to Yahoo in 2005.

A similar situation has been seen on Flickr. After the photo-sharing site was acquired by Yahoo in 2005, the spotlight was quickly overshadowed by other services such as Picasa, which was acquired by Google in 2004. Instagram, who was in the pocket of Facebook's income last year, soon became the new favorite.

These bitter lessons have also left the shadow of other Silicon Valley start-ups. Although Yahoo's 2009-year bid was 50% higher than Google's, Yelp rejected Yahoo's offer only because its employees refused to work for Yahoo, according to people familiar with the matter.

But Schacht and Flickr co-founder Katelina Fick (Caterina Fake) said that Yahoo now seems to be very different from the previous years. "There had been a lot of failure. Is it going to happen now? I do not know. "Schacht said.

Perhaps to answer the question, Ms. Mayer quickly revised Flickr mobile apps after taking office, and in the surprise, fans have also praised the new design.

Fick said the move suggests that Yahoo "has changed a lot since we were there". She added: "They really value developers now, but we didn't do that when we were at Yahoo." ”

Whether Ms. Mayer's takeover is enough to correct Yahoo's course remains to be seen. The company's recent takeover of Summly, for example, has been a surprise to many in the industry. The technical uniqueness of the application, as well as Yahoo's high price, have been questioned by analysts. The main purpose of Yahoo's acquisition is to recruit the company's young founder, Nick De Aloisio, Nick D ' Aloisio, who is still in high school.

"The boy is in London, he's in high school, and they have a question mark on how good their skills are." "If you're not buying technology and you're not trying to recruit people, what do you get?" said Gillis. For hype? As the CEO of a public company, this should not be what you are after. ”

"But at least she does. "he said.