Yahoo! and The Peanut Butter Manifesto
Is the company spread to thin? According to an internal memo published in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required) by SVP, Brad Garlinghouse, the answer would be yes. Garlinghouse believes the company has lost leadership and focus and needs to cut duplicate positions from its workforce.
The article also mentioned the possible retirement of Chairman and CEO, Terry Semel. From my perspective, he has not delivered in substantively moving the company into a leadership position within IPTV and Social Networking.
If you can get your hands on the article, do so. It is an honest and clear message to management that not all is well and has not been for some time. Yahoo! has all the elements to be in leadership positions within several sectors. It is my hope there will be fundamental change throughout the company but that this memo will not result in mass firing of the rank and file who by and large are the core asset of the company. It is management that has created this peanut butter mess and they should be the ones held accountable.
Mr. Garlinghouse, your goals are laudable, the question is does Yahoo! know what it wants to be when it grows up and is the company willing to be bold and take risk?
