There are few names in the brief but intense history of the Internet that can compete with “Yahoo!” For a time it dominated the Internet, becoming a company that seemed capable of (almost) anything, saw its value rise like foam and became one of the most popular Big Tech brands. Not bad for a company launched in 1994 by two students from Stanford University who ended up becoming protagonists of the dotcom bubble. That is far away, however. The last time his name made headlines, just a few days ago, it was to announce the dismissal of 20% of his workforce.
Which surprised someHowever, it was not the number or its reach, but that Yahoo continues to add thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in revenue.
One (another) jig snip. That’s the latest major news starring Yahoo! Days ago, Axios announced that the company plans to lay off about 20% of its staff, a decision that will affect more than half of the workers in its advertising technology area. In practice, it translates into more than 1,600 workers, with which, according to the figures released by the news website, the company would add nearly 8,000 employees in total.
The news is not especially striking. Yahoo’s snip is far from what other Big Tech multinationals have been announcing in recent months, such as Meta, Microsoft, Amazon or Dell. What’s more, the CEO of the company, Jim Lanzone, assures that the adjustment has more to do with a change of strategy in the advertising unit of Yahoo for Business than with economic problems. His objective would be to focus on other, more profitable fronts, although, yes, the company will not fully exit the ad technology business.
Jim Lanzone, executive director of Yahoo.
And how is the company doing? At the end of 2022, Axios assured that Yahoo generates about 8,000 million dollars in GAAP revenue annually, which is the financial information standard of the United States. In 2020 it would have registered some 7,100 million. The firm ensures that it reaches almost 900 million people around the world, “bringing them closer to mail, finance, sports and news”.
“For partners, Yahoo offers a complete platform for companies to amplify their growth and drive more meaningful connections through advertising, search and the media,” the company highlights. In January it announced a three-decade business agreement with Taboola, an advertising firm, to create “a leading offering for advertisers, publishers and merchants” on the web. According to his calculations, the association will generate about 1,000 million dollars in annual revenue.
But… Is this the Yahoo of the 90s? Over the past few decades, the company launched in the 1990s by Yerry Yang and David Filo has gone through major changes. Perhaps the two biggest of all occurred in 2017 and 2021, in both cases due to sales operations. In 2017 Verizon bought Yahoo! for about 4,500 million dollars, which meant the end of its history as an independent firm. The agreement, yes, did not include their shares in Yahoo! Japan nor the e-commerce giant Alibaba. Years later, the US operator sold Yahoo and AOL to Apollo Global Management for 5,000 million dollars.
Shortly after the deal closed, Jim Lanzone, the former CEO of Tinder, became the head of Yahoo, taking over from Guru Gowrappan. His chronicle of the last decades is much more complex and connects with other firms, such as Altaba, an investment company that in 2019, published the newspaper Cinco Días, was in liquidation to pay what it owed for its participation in Alibaba. It also highlights Yahoo! Japan, a Japanese firm based in Tokyo. Japan Times recently reported that the ZHoldings company will merge with the Line messaging application and Yahoo! Japan, both its subsidiaries, in March 2024.
What does the company offer? On its corporate website, Yahoo Inc outlines its different brands, including Yahoo!, Yahoo! Sports, Yahoo! Life, AOL and a wide range of media, including TechCrunch, Engadget, Autoblog or Rivals. It also advertises its business solutions, with business services, ad technology, or search. The company boasts on its portal some 540 million unique user profiles and more than 200 global partners.
A complex history behind. In addition to being a pioneer of the Net, or precisely because of that, Yahoo! It has a complex history behind it that largely explains the decisive changes it underwent in 2017 and 2021. Its chronicle has been marked by decisions that in the end, and with the perspective that decades give, have been revealed to be improvable or outright wrong. .
Among the main ones, it stands out not having bought Google for 1,000 million, not putting more meat on the grill to take over Facebook, the lack of aim with the CEOs, rejecting Microsoft’s offer or not taking advantage of the purchase of Flickr.
Top image: Neon Tommy (Flickr)
