While Jerry Yang may feel he has reached Nirvana today, some of the chief executive’s fellow Yahoos might soon be reaching a nadir.
Mr Yang made a presentation at Advertising Week in New York, giving an official launch to Apt, the renamed Amp online advertising platform, with the San Francisco Chronicle and San Jose Mercury News becoming the first to deploy it.
In a euphoric note on the company blog, Mr Yang says:
“I started dreaming about this day 18 months ago, when I laid out my vision for our board of directors on how Yahoo! could play a very special role in changing the face of on the web advertising. In fact, Sue and I called it Nirvana at the time – a platform that would be to 2009 what radio was to 1924, TV to 1947, color TV to 1965, and the Internet to 1993.”
The tone is a little different from an email to all staff on Tuesday announcing the appointment of Bain & Co to review Yahoo’s expenses and suggest ways of improving efficiency.
Mr Yang says the company is actively looking for efficiencies through “process and structural changes”. He types:
“i know that yahoo! can benefit greatly from more discipline among all departments and functions, across the company. longer term, getting fit now will enable us to be more successful moving forward.”
While there’s no mention of downsizing or job cuts, the implications seem clear. Mr Yang, who actually increased staff numbers by 1,200 in his first quarter as chief executive last year, is now under pressure from his new board and shareholders to increase margins and profitability instead.
Streamlining lies ahead and reductions in its 14,000-strong workforce appear inevitable.
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