Brad Garlinghouse Ain’t No Jerry McGuire
by Aner Ravon

“Dead Man Walking”? Perhaps. Jerry McGuire? Hell, no way. 

Like many of you I too read the “Peanut butter memo” by Brad Garlinghouse of Yahoo. I expected one hell of a memo. One that draws a corridor standing ovation. An inspiring moment that would carry a sequel to “Jerry McGuire” (I strongly recommend reading the original Jerry McGuire memo as well as a magnificent post at the Valleybag).

I was really unimpressed. We used to call these people MOO (pronounced “MOOOOO”) which also stands for “Masters Of the Obvious”. Yes, Yahoo is middle-aging and needs a few changes and wins. Great news Brad. We appreciate your concern. It’s nice to see you care.

The style is also not that great. The sequence is too structured. The arguments are kind of generalized with too little detail or imagination. The frequent proclamations of love for Yahoo, the “let’s all rally behind this great company!” chants all look just a bit dramatized under the context.

I won’t go into deeper analysis of Yahoo’s real status. Dan Blank offers a nice starting point for those who wish to learn some more. My point is different. I think Brad pulled a cheap shot that will only backfire.

From a Senior Vice President at Yahoo I expect a little bit more than bitching about general lack of focus. I expect much more than moaning about unfair compensation structures. I expect more than an overly simplistic laundry list of mistakes / overlaps everyone is well aware of. Oh, and I definitely expect more than sending a memo to the CEO only to leak it by the back channels.

What do I expect? Suggesting focus and strategy for example. How can Yahoo compete with Google and MySpace? How can Yahoo compete with the smaller media and social sites? How can Yahoo be relevant in 5 years in a world of rapidly increasing diversity? Should Yahoo expand it’s services to the user or focus on increasing value from the existing reach? How?

What is the technical roadmap? Should Yahoo develop new technology? Acquire new technology? Aquire new services? which ones? how? 

What is Yahoo’s media strategy? How do they play commercial vs. user generated content and services? What is the Marketing strategy? Branding strategy?

What is the competitive strategy vs. Google? MSN? AOL? MySpace? Should Yahoo simply copy Google for a while in areas where it’s a clear number two such as search? Should Yahoo sell it’s messaging network in which it is not nearly a market leader? Should Yahoo invest in personal portals at all? Should Yahoo follow through on building a Mobile brand or is it a waste of time?

What’s the e-commerce strategy? What products should Yahoo monetize in 2010? What’s the global vs. local strategy? How does Yahoo increase it’s $’s per user? How does Yahoo catch up with Ad-sense?

How should Yahoo be re-organized? what’s the theme? products? markets? services? what kind of compensation plan do you feel will help recruit stars? What kind of review process would clean up the company of more parasite? What is the criteria for outsourcing? 

You’re a SVP at a mogul for crying out loud, not a junior employee. Many people would “kill” for your job. You are getting paid to lead the company past the problems you specified, not to list them. Nobody asked you to write a Jerry McGuire type of memo but if you did, make it worth the collective reading time. Terry Semel could be doing a shitty job, I can’t really know, but if you’re point is a point about Terry Semel sticking to his chair you should be looking in the mirror.    

Aner Ravon
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