Terry Semel is finally out as Yahoo's CEO. I can only imagine the dancing in the aisles over at Big Y. The list of people who have engendered "less love" than Terry is amazingly short. I think Stalin may be on it, but that was a given.
But in Jerry Yang's blog posting about the change in leadership he writes:
Since coming on board in 2001, Terry has given Yahoo! six of its best years.
Dude, what planet are you on that you say that, other than "PR World"? When the long history of Yahoo is written, Semel's reign will be compared to Scully or Amelio at Apple -- that long dark tea-time of the soul as it were.
But let's look at the numbers (derived from these)... Terry has been there since 2001...
Was 2001 one of the best years? I dunno, a massive drop in stock price leads me to think, "not so much."
Was 2002 one of the best years? Not quite so massive a decline but still at the end of the year, the stock was down off its 1/1/2002 price.
Was 2003 one of the best years? 2003 actually saw some growth. 12/30/2003 closed at 250% the price of 1/1/2003... but come on 1998 saw the rise to 400% of its Jan 1 value... 1999 it rose to another 400% increase.... so yeah, maybe 2003 was "one of the best", but let's continue on.
Was 2004 one of the best years? Dec. 2004 was about 150% of Jan, so maybe "slight growth".
Was 2005 one of the best years? The stock rose at years end by like 4%. Not quite "stellar".
Was 2006 one of the best years? With a 45% drop in price? Hardly.
Was 2007 one of the best years? Well, it's only half-way over, but the six-month chart really hasn't moved all that much over the course of the last six months ... unless of course you count today as all the traders were celebrating Terry's removal from power.
Score:
- 4 declining years
- 1 neutral years
- 1 decent year
- 1 good year
As a Yahoo shareholder, I say this: If you continue to say that Terry's years were "six of the best", then you're delusional and shouldn't be in control either. If you want to spin his departure, that's one thing, but outright lying and handing containers of Kool-Aid to shareholders isn't the way to go. Cut him loose completely and get back to the roots of what made Yahoo work in the first place.
