I am told by sports fans that Yahoo's sports content and fantasy sports leagues are quite good (I have no idea, please don't yell at me if you disagree.)
They also own flickr, which I'm sure you knew.
I am quite certain that people would care if these things, along with their @yahoo.com email addresses disappeared tomorrow. I'm sure you knew this too, because email is central to our online lives at this point.
So okay, you actually do know what yahoo does. What you don't know is their purpose. Google's purpose is to index all the worlds information (and then slap ads on it, but first one, then the other.) Apple's purpose is to make really great products, and then market them so well that people think they're even greater.
So, given what we know yahoo has, what's a consistent product story they could tell that would answer the question that comes up again and again?
Yahoo Fantasy Sports still has a leadership position in its space, which is a $1-2 Billion market for football alone. Anecdotally, it's the default fantasy sports platform for not only my group of friends, but whenever we are running an office pool (NCAA brackets, fantasy football, NFL survivor pool, etc.) since it's by far the fantasy sports platform with the widest adoption (main competitors being ESPN and CBS).
Google, Yahoo, and Apple's purpose is to maximize shareholder value. Those other things are just marketing fluff. Yahoo could do with some better marketing.
That's an incredibly reductionist view, and I'm so tired of people parroting it over and over again as if it's insightful. I mean, maximize shareholder value how? And how do they continue to maximize shareholder value? And over what period are they maximizing shareholder value? And how do they try find global maxima instead of local maxima? Is your answer to this simply going to be to parrot "maximize shareholder value" again? Not all companies are started with the goal being "to maximize shareholder value." Try pitching that to VCs. Try trying to get a small business loan, telling your bank "ahh yes, I noticed that there are too-few companies maximizing shareholder value, so I'm going to do that."
"Maximize shareholder value" is not a company. A company needs vision, it needs to do something or build something. A company needs profit, and preferably lots of it, yes, but it also needs a guiding philosophy that informs the markets it enters and the ways it enters them. You can call it "marketing fluff", but it's what makes the company what it is. For the best companies, profit is part of the vision, but it does not subsume the vision.
Google and Apple are both very successful companies, but they're both very different. You can deride the difference between them as marketing fluff, but I call it "successfully executing on vision."
It's also simply not true at a company like Google where the strong-visioned founders are still in charge.
Maybe with 2nd or 3rd generation leaders Google et al will be maximizing shareholder value for the sake of maximizing shareholder value. But not yet. They're still doing what their founders want them to do.
Technically, Google is maximizing shareholder value, but their major shareholders value stuff beyond mere money. Not intending to detract from your point in any way, I just thought it's an interesting way to approach it.
Of course every company has a "vision statement" on the wall. That doesn't mean it's a real thing that's worth discussing on HN. Even if a tiny percentage of companies truly believe and adhere to it. Google+ certainly isn't anything about "organizing the world's information".
In what way are the social connections between people and the things they share with one another not information? In some sense, that's the most valuable information out there, which is why not having it scared the shit out of Google.
I really hate this sentiment. I think Ray Anderson, founder of Interface has it right: "For those who think business exists to make a profit, I suggest they think again. Business makes a profit to exist. Surely it must exist for some higher, nobler purpose than that."
Google seems to adhere to it as well. Google's founders (reluctantly) embraced text ads as a way to make the company they wanted to lead profitable so that it could continue to exist. I think modern business loses sight of this idea.
And many large ones. I once worked for somebody who previously had built a $400m company. His notion was that companies should have a purpose, be up to something interesting. "Profit is just permission to continue," was something he said more than once.
The mere pursuit of profit is always fatal in the long term because it's essentially a short-term outlook that leaves you rudderless.
Look at the car industry as an example. Toyota has been consistent in its pursuit of customer value, respect for staff, and waste reduction, with profit coming way down the list of priorities. GM, on the other hand, is where the modern increase-shareholder-value school of management originated. Toyota is now the world's largest car company, and GM would have died without a government bailout.
They also own flickr, which I'm sure you knew.
I am quite certain that people would care if these things, along with their @yahoo.com email addresses disappeared tomorrow. I'm sure you knew this too, because email is central to our online lives at this point.
So okay, you actually do know what yahoo does. What you don't know is their purpose. Google's purpose is to index all the worlds information (and then slap ads on it, but first one, then the other.) Apple's purpose is to make really great products, and then market them so well that people think they're even greater.
So, given what we know yahoo has, what's a consistent product story they could tell that would answer the question that comes up again and again?