Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz was on Fox Business News today, and she was plenty Bartz-y. When Fox anchor Liz Clamen asked her repeatedly if she was on the way out, she said she was there to stay, adding “Do I look like a wimp?”
No. You do not. Even if you think Bartz is running the company into the ground, you have to give her credit for not holing up and hiding the way her predecessor Jerry Yang did, for continuing to be herself and holding her head high amid a pretty nasty storm of rumors. She further added that she wasn’t hiring a strong number two, saying she didn’t need one.
The question is, do we believe her? I don’t mean that question as a knock on her; frequently CEOs say they’re not going anywhere or not doing a deal or not launching a product just before they do. But Bartz didn’t help her credibility with her answer to Clamen’s question about whether she was tough to work for. She said: “So change just happens with new management and it’s actually refreshing for all of us. So 15,000 employees, three people left? That’s OK.”
Am I totally misunderstanding this or is she saying only three people have left Yahoo in the last year and a half? I think I’ve talked to three this week. I’m not convinced Bartz was a good fit for Yahoo, but I’ve long been a fan of her outspoken, here’s-the-way-it-is management style. And that statement isn’t how things are at Yahoo.
I’m somewhere between those onlookers who loathe Bartz and those who love her. I know a lot of talented executives who have left Yahoo in part because of her. They aren’t haters; they just don’t feel she gets the product or the business. And few metrics have been up during her short tenure, other than profitability which is up 80%, but that’s mostly through cost cutting and frankly, Yahoo had a lot of fat to cut. But on the other hand, I think Bartz is cleaning up a big mess that was a long time in the making. Not even a fictional wonder-CEO could do that in 18 months.
Let’s remember: The business hasn’t grown for six years and Bartz has only been there 18 months. She’s not the one who turned down Microsoft’s $31 a share offer. She’s not the one who bungled an acquisition of Google, YouTube or Facebook. And while we had some fun at her expense over her comments about the technical challenges of blogging– I can tell you from experience Yahoo’s in house content management system was impossible to use. Should it have taken this long and a pile of money to update it? Of course not. But it shows just how asleep the board and prior management was when it came to building a strong modern content creation company– not just a content aggregation company. Eight years after Google bought Blogger, and at least five years after most old media companies embraced blogging platforms like Moveable Type and WordPress, Yahoo is finally figuring it out. You can’t put that on Bartz.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The Yahoo CEO job has a way of making smart people look inept. Maybe she wasn’t the best pick, but who is this magical better person who’s out there just dying to take her spot?
Back to the Fox segment: There were two rumors Bartz didn’t deny. The first was when she was asked about the takeover rumors and she, as expected, said it wasn’t appropriate for her to speculate. The second was about Yahoo’s investment in Alibaba. She didn’t say they were selling the assets– even when needled by Clamen– but she didn’t say they weren’t selling them, the way she categorically denied an upcoming ouster or talk of a strong number two joining her team. She definitely signaled that she views Alibaba as a wise financial investment and of little strategic value.
Given how much of global Internet traffic is increasingly coming from overseas, and how brilliantly Jack Ma has navigated infrastructure and political challenges endemic to a country like China, I just don’t see how Bartz doesn’t get how much Yahoo could learn from Alibaba or on a more basic level, the advantages of having someone like that as an ally. For sheer entertainment value, I’d give an arm to see Bartz, Jerry Yang and Jack Ma at a board meeting, when and if Yahoo get its contractually-obligated second seat on Alibaba’s board.
From the transcript:
CLAMAN: I need to ask you about Alibaba, this Chinese site in which you have a near 40 percent stake that is extraordinarily valuable. Everyone is wondering are you going to cash in on that. What are you going to do with Alibaba?
First of all, is it 7 billion in value? Is it 11 billion? I can’t get a straight number from anybody.
BARTZ: Well, I think one of the reasons you can’t get a straight number is it’s a private company, so there’s a lot of people that are doing their best analysis of that.
You know, the company five years ago had some trouble in China and made such a wise decision to move the business out of China and not operate in China cause we see what can happen in some of the issues with that.
CLAMAN: Meaning Google and that situation.
BARTZ: And we partnered up with a fantastic entrepreneur named Jack Ma. Five years later, everybody is salivating because it was such a good decision and such a good investment.
So we continue to watch this investment. We’re on the board of Alibaba. And we’re also always watching what is best for the shareholders.
CLAMAN: Would you wait until it goes public or do you not want to miss an opportunity that may be before that?
BARTZ: You’re always evaluating things like this, Liz. Any investment you’re evaluating should I take some out now, should I wait and do these things later.
We have a team of very strong financial experts that both work here and advise us, and we will do the right thing for the shareholders, no doubt about it.
CLAMAN: It must be tempting, though, when you look at — OK, let’s use the low number — $7 billion, if that’s what Alibaba is valued at, to say, boy, you know, this would get some of the analyst heat off my back.
(LAUGHTER)
BARTZ: You know, I have a job that absorbs the heat. That is my job. And so, hey, listen, sometimes it is not fun that you get a little more heat than you expect. But we have such confidence in what we’re doing and we have such confidence in that investment that we will not do anything silly because of supposed heat. We will do the right thing as a management team and the right thing for the shareholders.
What makes a man want to amass more money than God, and once he has, keep going? For each hedge-fund manager the answers are a little bit different, and a little bit the same. From today's Bloomberg Markets we believe we have identified the four primary things that motivated Harbinger Capital founder Philip Falcone (or as readers of this blog may know him, Mr. Lisa Falcone), whose fund made $11 billion betting against subprime, to become who he is today.
We begin with a sepia-tinted moment when Falcone first leaves his Minnesota hometown, all gawky of limb and Lionel Richie of hair, to seek his fortune in the big city.
Neil Sheehy, from nearby International Falls, had offered Falcone a ride to Harvard University, which had recruited both of them to play hockey for the Crimson. The car stalled in front of Falcone’s house, and Sheehy had to restart it on a hill while Falcone’s mother and one of his sisters sobbed their goodbyes.
“It’ll be all right, Mrs. Falcone; it’ll be all right,” Sheehy recalls telling Caroline Falcone as the car chugged to life and headed east.
Falcone was one of nine, and his mother still cared that he was leaving home! This is meaningful and leads us to Motivation 1: Phil can never let his mama down.
[To wit, later: "Galloway says he once set up a meeting for Falcone with a billionaire investor who was interested in Harbinger. Falcone said he couldn’t make the meeting because he had to go see his mother."]
Immediately after leaving home, life decided to punk young Philip by showing him that even when you think that things are tough, they can always get worse.
Falcone rode to Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his feet on the dashboard because Sheehy had packed a skate-sharpening machine on the floor of the front seat... Halfway there, the roof liner came loose and showered the young men with fiberglass insulation that stuck to them as they sweated in the late.
Motivation 2: The fuck he's going to go through something like that again. He is going to kick life's ass!
Then, he did not quite fit in at school.
Falcone was wide-eyed when he arrived at Harvard in 1980, says hockey teammate Greg Olson, who’s now a dentist in Minnetonka, Minnesota. “He was a deer in the headlights,” Olson says. After recovering from the initial shock, Falcone made himself something of a campus don. Hockey teammates called him “Fashion Phil” because he cared so much about his clothes, Olson says. He had a blue, three-piece suit that he wore often, and he always wore stylish shoes.
Motivation 3: Show those jerkoffs who called him a hick and a fag who the man is.
But after graduation, he was more confident.
[Wife Lisa] was working as a model when she met Phil Falcone through mutual friends at a Manhattan restaurant in the late 1980s.
Motivation 4: GIRLS!
Of course, a hot wife and incredible financial success doesn't keep the critics at bay. If anything, it just makes them worse.
“Just because a manager got the subprime trade right, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a skilled manager,” says Brad Balter, managing partner of Balter Capital Management LLC, a Boston-based firm that invests in hedge funds for clients. “There have been several funds that benefited from that bet in 2007 whose performance was mediocre before and continues to be mediocre today.”
Motivation 5: Show those jerkoffs who suggest he is a one-hit wonder who the man is. Then show them again. And again. Until he dies.
Falcone Losing Touch Borrowing From Funds While His Investors Denied Cash
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Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz was on Fox Business News today, and she was plenty Bartz-y. When Fox anchor Liz Clamen asked her repeatedly if she was on the way out, she said she was there to stay, adding “Do I look like a wimp?”
No. You do not. Even if you think Bartz is running the company into the ground, you have to give her credit for not holing up and hiding the way her predecessor Jerry Yang did, for continuing to be herself and holding her head high amid a pretty nasty storm of rumors. She further added that she wasn’t hiring a strong number two, saying she didn’t need one.
The question is, do we believe her? I don’t mean that question as a knock on her; frequently CEOs say they’re not going anywhere or not doing a deal or not launching a product just before they do. But Bartz didn’t help her credibility with her answer to Clamen’s question about whether she was tough to work for. She said: “So change just happens with new management and it’s actually refreshing for all of us. So 15,000 employees, three people left? That’s OK.”
Am I totally misunderstanding this or is she saying only three people have left Yahoo in the last year and a half? I think I’ve talked to three this week. I’m not convinced Bartz was a good fit for Yahoo, but I’ve long been a fan of her outspoken, here’s-the-way-it-is management style. And that statement isn’t how things are at Yahoo.
I’m somewhere between those onlookers who loathe Bartz and those who love her. I know a lot of talented executives who have left Yahoo in part because of her. They aren’t haters; they just don’t feel she gets the product or the business. And few metrics have been up during her short tenure, other than profitability which is up 80%, but that’s mostly through cost cutting and frankly, Yahoo had a lot of fat to cut. But on the other hand, I think Bartz is cleaning up a big mess that was a long time in the making. Not even a fictional wonder-CEO could do that in 18 months.
Let’s remember: The business hasn’t grown for six years and Bartz has only been there 18 months. She’s not the one who turned down Microsoft’s $31 a share offer. She’s not the one who bungled an acquisition of Google, YouTube or Facebook. And while we had some fun at her expense over her comments about the technical challenges of blogging– I can tell you from experience Yahoo’s in house content management system was impossible to use. Should it have taken this long and a pile of money to update it? Of course not. But it shows just how asleep the board and prior management was when it came to building a strong modern content creation company– not just a content aggregation company. Eight years after Google bought Blogger, and at least five years after most old media companies embraced blogging platforms like Moveable Type and WordPress, Yahoo is finally figuring it out. You can’t put that on Bartz.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The Yahoo CEO job has a way of making smart people look inept. Maybe she wasn’t the best pick, but who is this magical better person who’s out there just dying to take her spot?
Back to the Fox segment: There were two rumors Bartz didn’t deny. The first was when she was asked about the takeover rumors and she, as expected, said it wasn’t appropriate for her to speculate. The second was about Yahoo’s investment in Alibaba. She didn’t say they were selling the assets– even when needled by Clamen– but she didn’t say they weren’t selling them, the way she categorically denied an upcoming ouster or talk of a strong number two joining her team. She definitely signaled that she views Alibaba as a wise financial investment and of little strategic value.
Given how much of global Internet traffic is increasingly coming from overseas, and how brilliantly Jack Ma has navigated infrastructure and political challenges endemic to a country like China, I just don’t see how Bartz doesn’t get how much Yahoo could learn from Alibaba or on a more basic level, the advantages of having someone like that as an ally. For sheer entertainment value, I’d give an arm to see Bartz, Jerry Yang and Jack Ma at a board meeting, when and if Yahoo get its contractually-obligated second seat on Alibaba’s board.
From the transcript:
CLAMAN: I need to ask you about Alibaba, this Chinese site in which you have a near 40 percent stake that is extraordinarily valuable. Everyone is wondering are you going to cash in on that. What are you going to do with Alibaba?
First of all, is it 7 billion in value? Is it 11 billion? I can’t get a straight number from anybody.
BARTZ: Well, I think one of the reasons you can’t get a straight number is it’s a private company, so there’s a lot of people that are doing their best analysis of that.
You know, the company five years ago had some trouble in China and made such a wise decision to move the business out of China and not operate in China cause we see what can happen in some of the issues with that.
CLAMAN: Meaning Google and that situation.
BARTZ: And we partnered up with a fantastic entrepreneur named Jack Ma. Five years later, everybody is salivating because it was such a good decision and such a good investment.
So we continue to watch this investment. We’re on the board of Alibaba. And we’re also always watching what is best for the shareholders.
CLAMAN: Would you wait until it goes public or do you not want to miss an opportunity that may be before that?
BARTZ: You’re always evaluating things like this, Liz. Any investment you’re evaluating should I take some out now, should I wait and do these things later.
We have a team of very strong financial experts that both work here and advise us, and we will do the right thing for the shareholders, no doubt about it.
CLAMAN: It must be tempting, though, when you look at — OK, let’s use the low number — $7 billion, if that’s what Alibaba is valued at, to say, boy, you know, this would get some of the analyst heat off my back.
(LAUGHTER)
BARTZ: You know, I have a job that absorbs the heat. That is my job. And so, hey, listen, sometimes it is not fun that you get a little more heat than you expect. But we have such confidence in what we’re doing and we have such confidence in that investment that we will not do anything silly because of supposed heat. We will do the right thing as a management team and the right thing for the shareholders.
What makes a man want to amass more money than God, and once he has, keep going? For each hedge-fund manager the answers are a little bit different, and a little bit the same. From today's Bloomberg Markets we believe we have identified the four primary things that motivated Harbinger Capital founder Philip Falcone (or as readers of this blog may know him, Mr. Lisa Falcone), whose fund made $11 billion betting against subprime, to become who he is today.
We begin with a sepia-tinted moment when Falcone first leaves his Minnesota hometown, all gawky of limb and Lionel Richie of hair, to seek his fortune in the big city.
Neil Sheehy, from nearby International Falls, had offered Falcone a ride to Harvard University, which had recruited both of them to play hockey for the Crimson. The car stalled in front of Falcone’s house, and Sheehy had to restart it on a hill while Falcone’s mother and one of his sisters sobbed their goodbyes.
“It’ll be all right, Mrs. Falcone; it’ll be all right,” Sheehy recalls telling Caroline Falcone as the car chugged to life and headed east.
Falcone was one of nine, and his mother still cared that he was leaving home! This is meaningful and leads us to Motivation 1: Phil can never let his mama down.
[To wit, later: "Galloway says he once set up a meeting for Falcone with a billionaire investor who was interested in Harbinger. Falcone said he couldn’t make the meeting because he had to go see his mother."]
Immediately after leaving home, life decided to punk young Philip by showing him that even when you think that things are tough, they can always get worse.
Falcone rode to Cambridge, Massachusetts, with his feet on the dashboard because Sheehy had packed a skate-sharpening machine on the floor of the front seat... Halfway there, the roof liner came loose and showered the young men with fiberglass insulation that stuck to them as they sweated in the late.
Motivation 2: The fuck he's going to go through something like that again. He is going to kick life's ass!
Then, he did not quite fit in at school.
Falcone was wide-eyed when he arrived at Harvard in 1980, says hockey teammate Greg Olson, who’s now a dentist in Minnetonka, Minnesota. “He was a deer in the headlights,” Olson says. After recovering from the initial shock, Falcone made himself something of a campus don. Hockey teammates called him “Fashion Phil” because he cared so much about his clothes, Olson says. He had a blue, three-piece suit that he wore often, and he always wore stylish shoes.
Motivation 3: Show those jerkoffs who called him a hick and a fag who the man is.
But after graduation, he was more confident.
[Wife Lisa] was working as a model when she met Phil Falcone through mutual friends at a Manhattan restaurant in the late 1980s.
Motivation 4: GIRLS!
Of course, a hot wife and incredible financial success doesn't keep the critics at bay. If anything, it just makes them worse.
“Just because a manager got the subprime trade right, it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s a skilled manager,” says Brad Balter, managing partner of Balter Capital Management LLC, a Boston-based firm that invests in hedge funds for clients. “There have been several funds that benefited from that bet in 2007 whose performance was mediocre before and continues to be mediocre today.”
Motivation 5: Show those jerkoffs who suggest he is a one-hit wonder who the man is. Then show them again. And again. Until he dies.
Falcone Losing Touch Borrowing From Funds While His Investors Denied Cash
bench craft company complaints
ABC <b>News</b> airs big exposé on BMW N54 engine problems, lawsuits [w <b>...</b>
ABC News investigates BMW fuel pump problems – Click above to watch video after the jump ABC News has cottoned on to the story that BMW.
Fox <b>News</b> Crew Gets Scolded At Democratic Meeting (VIDEO)
A Fox News camera crew showed up unannounced at a Democratic meeting in Wisconsin Monday, prompting a confrontation that eventually forced the show's producer into a rather startling admission: he understands why Democrats are wary of ...
Shepard Smith Inks New Fox <b>News</b> Deal – Deadline.com
EXCLUSIVE: Fox News Channel's signature news anchor Shepard Smith has signed a new multi-year deal to continue as the channel's lead news anchor as well as anchor of FOX Report and Studio B. Smith's most recent pact with Fox News inked ...
bench craft company complaints bench craft company complaints
ABC <b>News</b> airs big exposé on BMW N54 engine problems, lawsuits [w <b>...</b>
ABC News investigates BMW fuel pump problems – Click above to watch video after the jump ABC News has cottoned on to the story that BMW.
Fox <b>News</b> Crew Gets Scolded At Democratic Meeting (VIDEO)
A Fox News camera crew showed up unannounced at a Democratic meeting in Wisconsin Monday, prompting a confrontation that eventually forced the show's producer into a rather startling admission: he understands why Democrats are wary of ...
Shepard Smith Inks New Fox <b>News</b> Deal – Deadline.com
EXCLUSIVE: Fox News Channel's signature news anchor Shepard Smith has signed a new multi-year deal to continue as the channel's lead news anchor as well as anchor of FOX Report and Studio B. Smith's most recent pact with Fox News inked ...
bench craft company complaints bench craft company complaints
ABC <b>News</b> airs big exposé on BMW N54 engine problems, lawsuits [w <b>...</b>
ABC News investigates BMW fuel pump problems – Click above to watch video after the jump ABC News has cottoned on to the story that BMW.
Fox <b>News</b> Crew Gets Scolded At Democratic Meeting (VIDEO)
A Fox News camera crew showed up unannounced at a Democratic meeting in Wisconsin Monday, prompting a confrontation that eventually forced the show's producer into a rather startling admission: he understands why Democrats are wary of ...
Shepard Smith Inks New Fox <b>News</b> Deal – Deadline.com
EXCLUSIVE: Fox News Channel's signature news anchor Shepard Smith has signed a new multi-year deal to continue as the channel's lead news anchor as well as anchor of FOX Report and Studio B. Smith's most recent pact with Fox News inked ...
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