Yahoo! RIP. Mayer out as Verizon puts a dot com pioneer out of its misery
- Summary:
- It's over. Dot com pioneer Yahoo! is no more and CEO Marissa Mayer's announced her last in a long line of turnaround plans. Now, who takes the Oath?
And it’s over. At last. After five painful years of supposed turnaround, Yahoo! is no more - and CEO Marissa Mayer has announced the least-unexpected resignation in history.
Verizon confirmed yesterday that it has closed its $4.48 billion takeover which sees the end of a dot com brand that could once boast a valuation north of $100 billion. Now that the deal has closed, what was Yahoo! will be combined with AOL to create the bizaarely-named Oath.
Heading up Oath will be AOL’s CEO Tim Armstrong, which leaves Mayer with no real role, despite her earlier public protestations that she was committed to sticking around. Yesterday however the CEO emailed Yahoo! staffers to confirm:
Given the inherent changes to my role, I’ll be leaving the company…However, I want all of you to know that I’m brimming with nostalgia, gratitude, and optimism.
Mayer’s not the only Yahoo! employee who’s going. According to scuttlebutt, around 15% of the combined Yahoo!/AOL headcount is looking at redundancy. That’s around 2000 jobs worldwide, so there's blood-letting still to come.
Armstrong is, of course, more upbeat:
We’re building the future of brands using powerful technology, trusted content and differentiated data. Now that the deal is closed, we are excited to set our focus on being the best company for consumer media, and the best partner to our advertising, content and publisher partners.
There are still some outstanding questions - and perhaps law suits? - to come about the various security breaches at Yahoo! in its dying days, but that'll come out in the wash.
All that’s left now is for the part of Yahoo! not acquired by Verizon - the 15.5% stake in Alibaba and the 35.5% holding in Yahoo Japan Corp - to be rebranded Altaba. This will happen on Friday, after which Yahoo! is just a memory.
My take
To the bitter end, Mayer seems to have been the only person who thought that her ever-shifting rescue plan for Yahoo! was actually working. Even yesterday she insisted:
It’s been my great honor and privilege to be a part of this team for the last 5 years. Together, we have rebuilt, reinvented, strengthened, and modernized our products, our business, and our company.
Looking back on my time at Yahoo, we have confronted seemingly insurmountable business challenges, along with many surprise twists and turns. I’ve seen our teams navigate these hurdles and mountains in ways that have not only made Yahoo a better company, but also made all of us far stronger.
During these past 5 years, we’ve built products that delight our users, focused on our clients’ businesses, driven substantial value for our shareholders, and endeavored to make Yahoo the absolute best place to work.
But the simple reality is, the turnaround plan - or plans, there were so many over the five years! - didn’t work. I’ve said before that I don’t believe anyone could have saved Yahoo!, but equally I found it hard at times to imagine that more progress couldn't have been made.
Anyway, what’s done is done. Yahoo! RIP. It was great at the start, but all good things come to an end.
Now, let’s see how many organisations take the Oath?
And of course, keep a weather eye out on where Marissa Mayer turns up next.