Whit Andrews

I never met Jerry Yang. Or, maybe what I should say is, I haven’t met Jerry Yang yet, but I guess I might some day. Anyway, he’s not going to run Yahoo any more, he says. Seems likely you’ll see something more intelligent about this from Allen or Andrew soon — these guys cover Yahoo in ways I don’t. But I will take a moment and remember Yahoo and the 1990s.

I remember teaching people how to use the Web back in 1994 — I ultimately embarked on a consulting career that allowed me to gross $15 for that work — and finding, with Lycos searches, page after page of Yahoo results. I did not understand Yahoo at the time. Why would one create a bunch of links in hierarchical structures when one could simply search for everything all at once? I was a search dweeb from the word, “go.” (That could be the title of my blog. “Search dweeb.”)

Ultimately,of course, Yahoo emerged as the miracle brand of the Web. They tried to verbify themselves long before Google did — “Do You Yahoo?” was their rallying call, from I think ad agency Black Rocket. (Confirmed. How did I find it? Search, that’s right.) They erased their competition, many of whom were, frankly, better at what Yahoo did than Yahoo was. Yahoo was a fast follower in many ways, after all, coming after the Global Network Navigator and similar sites (I think), but more effective, and always more distinctive in its perfect brand. We all knew what Yahoo stood for.

I can’t speak to Yang’s particular intelligence, although I know Yahoo workers from that era felt keen loyalty to him, and a friend of mine who’s still there after all these years says she still feels that very personal connection. I do know that he always hired well. Jeff Mallett, who was the Yahoo executive I knew the best, was just as smart as a whip. And Tim Koogle was something else, too, as well as Ellen Siminoff and Dave Shen. (I hope I’ve spelled everyone’s names right.) I still remember when I visited Yahoo the day or so after a major redesign of the front page, in which it went from what I thought of as a sort of Yahoo Classic to a busier, more live Yahoo (which, frankly, I still think was probably a mistake). I asked Dave what analytics were showing in terms of people’s reaction to the new design. He hadn’t looked to see. I saw that then as just crazy, but now I see it as a sort of extreme confidence and task-oriented strategy.

Many eras have ended at Yahoo, surely. The company has “grown up” so many times that it would be ridiculous to see it as anything but a contemporary media power, with the give and take of any firm. I don’t mean to invest Yang with any sort of mystical power. I never met him, as I say. I always figured he was a Really Smart Guy who made a lot of his luck.

Nor does his decision to step down seem likely to affect his best role at Yahoo all that much. I imagine the workers there will always see him as a sort of embodiment of theirs and their customers’ interests.

What I do think, though, is that there is a clear and deep lesson here for the Google bigots that see Google as being beyond risk and beyond damage. Alta Vista seemed unconquerable at one point as well. Don’t get me wrong: Google has a lot of advantages, even beyond its magnificent brand. It has invested in enterprise applications with a determination that Yahoo has never manifested. It has an even more visible corporate culture than Yahoo did, and plenty of other reasons to be admired, from data centers to ambition. But there was a time when Yahoo dominated the online media world, too, and now it is in a profoundly difficult spot (with a very healthy business, I might add). Google could find itself there some day, too.

The cult of the managing entrepreneur is difficult to credit. I have seen so many software vendors founded by great thinkers who were challenged to take a company through every phase of its future. Google’s been very smart to bring in strong visionaries like Schmitt; Yahoo was as well, and I hope will be again. I have a five-letter email address there, which gives you an idea of how long ago it was I created my My Yahoo page — which I still use.

I’ll write a better mash note some day. I’m not glad that Yahoo’s an underdog again, because it’s cost hundreds of people their jobs, and investors their money. But I am intrigued to see how they will try harder, and how that might help them regain their stature.

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