The Valley's boardrooms remain far from a meritocratic ideal, remaining dominated by white males. Yahoo, accordingly, is being hailed for tapping Maggie Wilderotter as its first female board member. But Yahoo's press release glosses over a vital fact about Wilderotter: As Wink's CEO, she saw the interactive-TV software maker's shares plunge from $75 to $3, wiping out billions of dollars in market capitalization. We're not sure how that adds particularly to Yahoo's management expertise, save for giving the company a board member accustomed to hearing bad news.

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