Following Brad Garlinghouse’s “leaked” Memo to WSJ also known as “The Peanut Butter Manifesto” a few questions come to my mind:
- Will this trigger a real change in Yahoo?
- Is this just a personal agenda?
- Will his or Semel’s head roll?
- Is this just a storm in a glass, that will eventually fade out accomplishing nothing..?
- How should Yahoo or any other company react to this type of “outing”?
Regardless of the answers, it is an emberresment for Terry Semel and Yahoo’s management team. Anyway, I would not say that the problems pointed out by Brad are unique for Yahoo. They could could just as well be applied to other companies like AOL and probably soon Google as well. It is difficult to grow fast, become big and maintain the passion and innovation. And buying innovative, passionate companies does not mean that you can buy and maintain the passion. It will often fade after the deal. That is just the natural order of things…
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