What’s going on at Yahoo? Will CEO Jerry Yang, having just marked one year in the position , be around for much longer? It’s interesting to try to understand his mindset. After not accepting Microsoft’s offers to take over Yahoo, he upset shareholders; his personal desire to keep the company he built independent has destroyed a great deal of shareholder value.
He was holding out for a higher offer—was he aware of some value in Yahoo that the casual observer is not? Sometimes CEOs can adopt a longer term view to the challenges they face and put current concerns in perspective—we found this among senior managers with a great deal of executive accountability in a Cranfield study of the NHS Trust.
But has the potential merger made Yang lose all perspective? He recently wasn’t able clearly answer the question of what Yahoo does . His longevity at Yahoo remains to be seen.