My penance for Jerry after his self-layoff
To bastardize the Bard, I am neither here to praise nor to bury Jerry Yang, now officially to be the ex-CEO of Yahoo and the one-time Supreme conqueror of the Universe we know as the Internet.
Yang was a bonafide www.w: a World-Wide-Web winner. But when he announced his departure this week from the helm of the fading Yahoo (once he finds a replacement), he left more than enough people throughout the world who will both gladly praise or bury him. Or maybe do both at the same time.
It’s hard to find an Asian American more admired, loved and reviled during this recession. That’s what you get for being arguably the most influential APA of modern times, and not just merely among the super rich of Capitalism 2.0 (or is it now 3.0?).
How can you not be in awe of one of the greatest innovators in internet history, who along with Yahoo co-founder David Filo, gave birth to the first great mass Internet organizer?
Yahoo became a monster brand like Coke, but it was birthed out of the modern Internet counter-culture that, because of its tremendous profits, couldn’t avoid being lumped in eventually with the adults in the mainstream. That, of course, ultimately led to Yahoo’s downfall and opened the door to the Googles, who were younger, if not smarter, far more innovative and even more willingly co-optable by capitalism.
I put the turning point for Yahoo at about 2003 when even I, once a devoted Yahoo-only guy, defected to G-mail. When a guy like me with multiple Yahoo accounts turned on Yahoo, I knew it was the end.
Yahoo thought content was king and went Hollywood. It liked money and oddly, Terry Semel. But Yahoo (and Yang) lost their way, and they began to awaken from its dream. Nothing like being awoken in broad daylight in your PJs on El Camino Real. Yahoo has been valiantly trying to recapture the market heat it had long lost to Google ever since. But when it considered hooking up with Microsoft, things really got weird.
Did Jerry Yang screw up your 401K?
If yes, then you are in the other camp, far less concerned about Yang the modern Asian American geek billionaire visionary, and more concerned with the infantile Yang, the irresponsible, greedy, naïve business owner who couldn’t leave his ego at the boardroom door and insisted his baby was worth more than the $30-plus dollars per share Microsoft was willing to overpay him to ravage his vision. Even now, you can see why maybe he couldn’t sign on the dotted line.
But along with the riches comes responsibility. And Yang had a duty to his shareholders. What’s that phrase that all those who have ever held stock options in an Internet company have emblazoned on their foreheads? “Shareholder value!”
So what was Yang thinking this past spring when Microsoft’s bid at $31 a share, a 62 percent premium, was not good enough?
If you’re in this camp, then you can afford to be venal. Yang’s move might have just been a harbinger to how your 401k looks now after October, when anything not nailed down in a Caymans vault has gone off into the ether.
Yang? That stupid, greedy, bastard, you say. He screwed your portfolio, Yahoo, and has slurped his last noodle. Good riddance. Yahoo!
Yang’s Penance
I don’t feel so amok about Yang for wanting to save Yahoo from the MSNers. I’d rather recognize Yang for being the most influential Asian American guy on the planet who now enters his Internet middle age with a chance to do something really, really big.
After the retail therapy, of say, buying a fleet of red Ferraris, stepping down from CEO may actually do him some good.
Yang can start with what happened last November when he made a public appearance on C-SPAN. Yang was being pilloried by Rep. Christopher Smith (R-NJ), who compared Yahoo’s cooperation with Chinese censors to the actions of IBM Germany, which helped the Nazis locate Jews.
Yahoo’s collaboration actually led to Chinese journalist Shi Tao being sent to prison. And though the congressional hearing was intended to allow Yang and Yahoo to apppear contrite in public, Yang blew it. He refused to answer simple questions like whether Yahoo felt responsible to take care of the humanitarian needs of Shi Tao’s family.
But Yang seemed beyond inarticulate. In the digital I/O world, where the complex is broken down into an elegant, logical equation, Yang seemed incapable of direct answers that would satisfy morally. It was as if we were witnessing a massive software glitch. The search-engine king was stuck in a loop while in search for his — and his company’s — soul.
But now he should have the time to fix it and move on. It would be a great place to start whatever takes place in Jerry Yang 2.0.
Updates, Obamalot, Palin-alot, Tim Lincecum, Angelina Jolie, James Bond, Hank Paulson, Kiefer Sutherland, and any other famous name that might get you to amok.asianweek.com.
E-mail: emil@amok.com
Dear Emil:
Once more, I am with you.
Nice piece.
Even if it’s comme-ci, comme-ca.
But, Hell!, that’s life here on earth, right?
I don’t ;know about Jerry here. He had a fine ride. Even someone who worked for someone else for 27 years knows that in today’s “game,” time is NOT of the essence.
The MSM, well, make that the London Guardian, Google News as well?, today trumpets the imminent demise, well, make that relative “slow-dwath,” of the “new” American Century in a decade or two.
And not a moment too soon.
For the jingoistic malaprops of the Dubyous variety DESERVES to die. The death of the 1001 cuts at that.
After all, this nation has NOT learned, AFTER Chile/Allende, El Salvador/CIAssaults on nuns and priests, that is is but a single member of a community of nations.
That and the oogoing “settler” settlings in Jerusalem, never mind the West Bank or the Gaza Strip.
Hey, Barack, how can you reconcile the martyrdom of Palestinians alongside those of the “Jews” under the Nazis?
That Yahu and Likud are NOT Israel. Nor the IDF. Some “Jews,” maybe even a half-majority?, like Uri Avnery and his colleagues throughout the Diaapora, may speak for the likes of a former “Zionist,” Martin Buber. a mensch for all time, alongside the Mahatma.
New America Media today toplines the CIA misadventures in Evo Moraleses’ Bolivia.
And, never forget, Chalmers Johnson, years back, proclaimed the overreached andoverst5retched realities of our infamous overseas manipulations AND malingerings.
The Dow today is half its hyperinflated gerrymanderings of global labor/service/goods .
Closer to the reality.
And, never forget, when the yak herders and the lorry drivers of the world cannot afford the parka to fend off the winttry blasts, then shall the movers and shakers begin to quake and shake. In fear, that is.
As for those Dubai-ous types in the precincts of the Arabian tropics, enjoy your manmade isles AND your dirham-generated “slaves” of nouveau empire.
You may not have too long to savor same.
Witness the plunger of the value of a barrel of “crude,” sweet or otherwise.
Frank
P.S.: Did you note the headline about a “pill” doing thje work of a chemo session for lung cancer? The bad news is that it is “expensive.” Hey, those pharmas need THEIR ill0gotten gains, no?
Jerry Yang is not a saint, not a magician, not a superman. Just like all of us, he
has his flaws and weaknesses.
His decision (or maybe not his alone ?) to keep Yahoo independent from a deep-pocketed Microsoft which is infamous for their swashbuckling manner in doing business under a very swashbuckling Stever Ballmer is something we could all understand.
Economy turned sour in the midst of global financial tsunami and Yahoo of course suffered as well. This is not his fault alone. Which stock went up like mad since August ? Microsoft ? Google ? GM ? Citigroup ? AIG ? or even the
almighty, all-knowing Goldman Sachs ?