
Yahoo’s Big Question - What Is It? - mjfern
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/23/business/media/yahoos-big-question-for-mayer-what-is-it.html?hp&gwh=437B47E582E485DAF8C5F7AF1DD63E96
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meric
1\. Define Yahoo as a media company.

2\. Negotiate executive compensation based on performance of Yahoo against
benchmark group of other media companies (many of these media companies are
losing profit as if they are hot potatoes.), such as fairfax media.
[http://au.finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=FXJ.AX&t=1y](http://au.finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=FXJ.AX&t=1y)

3\. Profit!!

There is no ???.

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jgrahamc
Similar to what my alter ego pointed out:
[http://doublestealth.blogspot.com/2012/07/some-advice-for-
ma...](http://doublestealth.blogspot.com/2012/07/some-advice-for-marissa-
mayer.html)

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atarian
According to Steve Jobs, it's a tech company:
[http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-
cio/interviews/24...](http://www.informationweek.com/news/global-
cio/interviews/240000230)

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snowwrestler
I feel like this question is pointless gotcha journalism. You could apply it
to any major tech company and you would get muddled answers.

\- What is Google? They are a search company. So why do they have an email
service and a cell phone operating system? Why are they inventing self-driving
cars and buying major hardware companies? Why are they pushing a social
network so hard?

\- What is Apple? They are an electronic device company. But they have by far
the most successful retail stores in the world, and they are one of the
largest online retailers in the world.

\- Speaking of retail, what is Amazon? The world's largest online retailer,
right? So why are they running a huge cloud computing project? Why are they
making tablets?

\- What is Microsoft? The world's largest software company. So why does their
gaming division primarily sell hardware? Why did they just come out with their
own tablets?

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czr80
The Apple one doesn't really work, since the stores are primarily to sell
their own products. Apple is an outlier when it comes to focus, though.

But despite the fact that most of these companies do multiple things, it's
clear where their core competitive advantage lies: Google is search, Amazon is
online retail, Microsoft is Windows/Office, Yahoo is ?

