Yahoo's 'dishonesty'

Commenter Yahoo62 has lost confidence in Sunnyvale's public pronouncements: the company said its CTO's departure had been discussed for months, but it didn't have a successor in place; Terry Semel had "fire in his belly", a week before it was extinguished; and now Yahoo's publicists are presenting Wenda Millard, its departing display ad boss, as a casualty of a management reorg, rather than a defection. I'm sure there are explanations for Yahoo's inconsistency other than outright falsehood: sometimes people jump before they're pushed; and events move rapidly. But Sunnyvale's corporate communications team, though doubtless under pressure, shouldn't spin so hard as to lose all credibility. Better to admit: yes, we've taken a beating; we've lost some real talent, as well as the deadweight; but our audience isn't disappearing any time soon, and we'll be back. [After the jump, Yahoo62's indictment of the company's "inconsistent and seemingly dishonest statements."]

Looking at recent history at Yahoo, it is pretty easy to know who to believe between Wenda and Yahoo on this one. In fact, it is quite surprising that nobody has questioned Yahoo's numerous inconsistent and seemingly dishonest statements to the media and its shareholders in light of actual events.

First, the company announces the departure of its CTO Farzad Nazem. The company and Zod say that the move had been contemplated for months but that Zod wanted to wait until Panama was launched before making the announcement. If the move was contemplated for months, why wasn't the company ready with a real CTO to replace him?

Then, exactly one week after saying in a shareholder meeting that he still has the "fire in his belly" to lead the company, Terry and the company announce his resignation and explain that leading up to the announcement Terry "was clear in telling the Board of [his] desire to take a step back sooner rather than later." So wait, he had the fire in his belly *and* he wanted to take a step back sooner rather than later? This makes me feel something in my belly.

But this last one takes the cake. Yahoo announces that Wenda is moving out as part of steps Yahoo "has been taking since the beginning of the year." And it makes this announcement *on a Sunday* - the day before her new role at MSLO was supposed to be announced. Let me guess, we are supposed to believe the company thought its sales restructuring was so ingenious that it couldn't wait until Monday to announce it?

As everybody that interacted with Yahoo knows, Millard was the unsung hero for a lot of Yahoo's success during the turnaround. Millard was the one that brought the big advertisers (with their big $) to Yahoo. Greg Coleman somehow clung to his job despite the regular shrinking of his day-to-day responsibilities (check out the press release announcing his arrival) in large part because he took credit for Millard's sales success.

These are new steps to consolidate search and graphic ad sales? C'mon. They were both consolidated under Coleman, to whom both Wenda and Karnstedt reported, for years. A fish smells from the head. For Coleman to point the finger at Millard is despicable. I expect better from a guy who "attended" the MBA program at NYU.

If Yahoo put the same effort into its business that it puts into spinning its failures to the media, it might be a more formidable competitor to Google. Likewise, if Yahoo treated the public and its shareholders with more respect we'd be a lot more likely to root for it to turn things around yet again.

[From Yahoo62's comment on What a mess]

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