

An Open Letter to Carol Bartz, CEO Yahoo Inc. - adulau
http://thomashawk.com/2010/12/an-open-letter-to-carol-bartz-ceo-yahoo-inc.html

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Jun8
Pretty common sense stuff, but as they say common sense is not so common,
especially among CEOs.

As for underperforming CEOs getting high pay, from personal experience I can
provide anotehr data point: Ed Zander who at one point was the highest paid in
the US with ~$30M. He totally f __ked up Motorola (among other people). In
fact, sadly, this seems to be the rule rather than the exception among CEOs.

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hvs
It costs a lot of money to convince a CEO to come to a failing/faltering
company.

EDIT: I'd just like to add that I think the letter itself is very well written
and surprisingly heartfelt.

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angdis
What we need now is fuckedcompany.com 2010-style !!

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geekinthecorner
Whenever I read a letter like the one Bartz wrote, I'm curious who the
intended audience was, a board, or the employees.

"Margins have expanded. Revenue growth has stabilized after a long period of
decelerating trends. "

That was definitely not written for any of Yahoo's employees.

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capstone
Stock market is the most efficient grader of all? Really? Algorithmic trading
accounts for over 70% of US equity trading volume. If there ever was a time
when you could grade a CEO based on the stock market performance, that time is
long gone. Check your assumptions.

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joshu
Informationless trading adds volume but is not thought to move prices. Check
your assumptions.

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capstone
Huh? _Informationless trading_ is pretty much the exact opposite of
_algorithmic trading_. It has nothing to with volume, it simply means that you
are buying/selling not because you have information that leads you to believe
the stock in question is about to go up/down but rather because you need cash,
or it's an IPO, etc.

Algorithmic trading is nothing _but_ informational - the whole purpose is to
analyze information, detect a trend, and ride it. Add to that quote stuffing
and other _price manipulation_ techniques (emphasis mine). It think it's
rather hard to make a case that the robots that make up the majority of
trading volume have no effect on prices.

I don't know where you get your nebulous _is thought not to move prices_.
Thought by whom? HFT firms and technology providers? Well, duh. They are
making a killing in essentially passive income and they are about to get shut
down by various regulatory bodies in US and Europe. What do you expect them to
say? Of course their party line is, we have a zero net effect on prices, and a
positive effect on liquidity.

