Sell Yahoo!. Buy Prozac
Microsoft has walked away from their takeover bid for Yahoo!, and today is the day when the market will have its say about the wisdom of Yahoo! chief Jerry Yang's frantic actions aimed at avoiding being folded into Microsoft at any cost. Kara Swisher at All Things Digital rang up some executives at Yahoo! after the deal disintegrated, and their reactions had none of the bluster and high-fives in evidence in the Yahoo! boardroom when the deal fell through.
So, here’s a sampling of the feelings, none of which were positive, even though BoomTown tried mightily to get someone to render a more sanguine spin on the proceedings:
“I am in shock.”
“I don’t know if we won or we lost. I think we lost.”
“I don’t love that it was Microsoft, but I think everyone thought $33 was a pretty good offer from a pretty good tech company.”
“Having to face my staff tomorrow will not be so much fun and I need some Prozac, since I don’t know what I can say to them about how our leadership is going to get our company going again.”
“Where’s the Jelly memo when you need it?”
“I can’t really talk to Jerry, since it is difficult to tell a founder tough things he probably needs to hear.”
And, “Do you think we need to do an intervention with Jerry and the board?”
Yahoo! is down almost twenty percent in early trading. There are 1.34 billion shares of Yahoo out in the world. They are trading for about $10 per share less than Microsoft's offer. This means Jerry Yang and his supporters inside Yahoo, have made $13.4 billion of their shareholder's equity disappear overnight.
High five!
So, here’s a sampling of the feelings, none of which were positive, even though BoomTown tried mightily to get someone to render a more sanguine spin on the proceedings:
“I am in shock.”
“I don’t know if we won or we lost. I think we lost.”
“I don’t love that it was Microsoft, but I think everyone thought $33 was a pretty good offer from a pretty good tech company.”
“Having to face my staff tomorrow will not be so much fun and I need some Prozac, since I don’t know what I can say to them about how our leadership is going to get our company going again.”
“Where’s the Jelly memo when you need it?”
“I can’t really talk to Jerry, since it is difficult to tell a founder tough things he probably needs to hear.”
And, “Do you think we need to do an intervention with Jerry and the board?”
Yahoo! is down almost twenty percent in early trading. There are 1.34 billion shares of Yahoo out in the world. They are trading for about $10 per share less than Microsoft's offer. This means Jerry Yang and his supporters inside Yahoo, have made $13.4 billion of their shareholder's equity disappear overnight.
High five!
