Customer Reviews

Inside Yahoo! Reinvention and the Road Ahead

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Like many other writers about technology companies, Karen Angel has simply read a lot of newspaper and magazine articles about the company, interviewed some knowledgeable outsiders (key insiders did not cooperate with her) and organized the resulting material in chronological sequence. If, like I, you are interested in learning the basic facts about Yahoo!, this book will suffice, but don't expect anything in the way of new revelations or searching analysis.

What comes across is a group of relatively bright young computer nerds who happened to be in the right place at the right time, decided that they were the Christ, and imploded from their own greed and hubris, professing all the while their personal integrity. Urrrppp!

This book is basically the history of the 500 lb gorilla of the dot-com debacle. It follows Yahoo! from its birth in a Stanford trailer up through the pits of despair in late 2001.

I personally learned quite a bit about the forces that shaped this "walking contradiction" of a company. For me (as a geek) the most interesting part was the history of what technologies and services have been rolled into the Yahoo! brand, including early plays into VoIP as far back as 1998 and Yahoo!'s short fling with adult content.

Lost a star for the (I felt) boring profusion of financial figures every few pages. Yes, the difference between GAAP and pro-forma reporting blah blah and stock rating by Bleedle and Blarney was changed fom zzzzz.... Some of this pure finance speak is obviously necessary to the story, since a lot of the action pivots on economic calamity. It just seemed that the book occasionally became the history of YHOO the stock instead of Yahoo! the company.

For "ancient history" (in Internet time) the book is a great resource. I'll still need something to fill in the gap between the ending of this book (the expectation at end of 2001 that Yahoo! would die, become irrelevant, or get acquired) through modern times. But taken for what it is, it's a handy reference.

The author has used her sources effectively to delineate the Intenet boom and its subsequent fall, by describing Yahoo's growth from a Stanford trailer into a media company. She has captured the frenzy of the late 90's and takes the reader through the numerous accquisitions and investments in Silicon Valley. At the same time the book is an overkill with the excessive information provided and at times reads like an encyclopaedia with figures thrown in liberally. The fact that Yahoo hasn't cooperated with the author is evident in several places. Overall its a good read

Of course, when you think Internet, YAHOO! comes to mind immediately. Here it's fascinating to read about the key players, with their contrasting personalities and ingenuity, behind the very modest beginnings of Yahoo!--from a trailer on Stanford U's campus. That's an inspiration for all of us wanna-be's.... And then to watch this dot.com swell to Internet behemoth worth $100+ billion on the stock market--along the way, missing scooping up now-strong e-Bay! Memorable too that a teen hacker even took down this Goliath for a while.... Yahoo did not burn through its venture capital like many others but it failed to leverage its burgeoning superstatus in the marketplace and to fully respond to the competition. The story is a rollercoaster ride with big names you'll recognize and other names you'll come to appreciate, along with some business insights for facing new challenges ahead. A good, absorbing read. This book is important for American business history and for your own dot.com literacy. Highly recommended. -M.J.

Where does Yahoo go from here? In order to answer this effectively, it is important to understand Yahoo's history and culture, and how it arrived at today's crossroads. This book does a wonderful job of providing this information. Especially the first chapters detailing the formation of the company are very interesting. However, I rate it a 4 instead of 5 for the following reasons:

(1) In it's bid to be comprehensive about all details, the book sometimes attains the tone of a documentary rather than a gripping story (especially in chapters towards the end). And it treats all stories big and small somewhat uniformly, inlcuding the "eBay acquisition miss", and "Yahoo's inactivity during AOL's purchase of Time Warner", which in hindsight seem to be two important "mis-steps", and probably deserve a more in-depth coverage.

(2) Given the author's understanding of the subject company, and various contacts tapped for writing the book, I would have expected at the end a good, detailed discussion of what might be various prescriptions for the future. Especially since this is still a story in progress.

These points notwithstanding, the book is well worth reading by any one wishing to understand Yahoo, and the excitement caused by the internet era.

I used this book as a starting block for a thesis I am working on. The information within the book provide insight of managements ideas and fundamentals. By no means should this book be used as a guide for the Yahoo's due to the flux of the Internet. Instead it a guide to the historical reference on what makes the company tick.

After reading/studying the book, the founders principles still exist at Yahoo today... Focus on creating a social-engineering product (Yang) and consumer interface to the Web (Filo). Understanding this, recent moves by Yahoo make more since (e.g. acquisition of fliker and role out of 360.)

Furthermore, if you want to read about one of the four leaders in the Internet bubble, this is a very good book. It does a good job showing how the company ran a race against the other information providers at the time, Lycos and Excite. Finally, the author did a good job illustrating how company survived the busting of the bubble. If you have the time, and are interested in the company, it ought to be money well spent.

"Inside Yahoo!" traces the dot-com's gripping story from grass-roots beginnings to multibillion-dollar market cap. Packed with insights from insiders, the book explores the forces behind Yahoo's rapid transformation from a grad-school project into a public company beholden to investors and Wall Street -- and finally, a troubled dot-com in search of a sustainable business model. Though Yahoo's principals didn't cooperate with Angel, she captures their personalities and foibles through exhaustive interviews with former and current Yahoo employees, corporate partners and industry observers. The context she provides throughout makes the book as much a chronicle of the times -- and of Silicon Valley silliness -- as a history of one company. Ultimately, she poses the important questions about Yahoo's future and whether it can afford to stay independent.

I like the style of the author, the reading is fun and humorous but it's full of information on how the Yahoo started and where it is heading now. I like the concept of Yang and Filo, giving to community first before making a profit. The book is definitely a keep for files and future example when building a community websites which i am now.


Nat

Inside Yahoo! presents a blow-by-blow chronology of the birth, ascension and downfall of a company that - in terms of business model and stock price - was the archetype of the `90s dot-com. Readers will be hard pressed to identify any relevant fact or event from the life of Yahoo! overlooked by author Karen Angel. What is missed however, is meaty analysis: Did the hubris of Yahoo!'s founders contribute to the company's reversal of fortunes? Angel doesn't speculate. Nevertheless, we from getAbstract recommend her book for its comprehensive recounting of a business tale that truly captures the essence of the Internet boom.

This book is very well written, informative and entertaining. With its spectacular IPO, rocket ride to ridiculously overvalued levels - and subsequent fall to earth - Yahoo's story (oops, I forgot the !) helps explain the incredible phenomenon that was the Silicon Valley and Internet craze of 1995-2000. In many ways, Yahoo is atypical of most internet companies (they survived, for starters) in that they actually had a workable idea that was sufficently thought out. What a concept. Plus, they had first mover advantage - a crucial element behind their success. Karen Angel has really done her homework. Her book is thoroughly researched, stuffed with plenty of anecdotes and really makes you feel like a fly on the wall to Yahoo's amazing history.