Product Description

Inside Yahoo!
Reinvention and the Road Ahead

"No company better reflects the zeitgeist of the Internet bubble than Yahoo!, which grew from a part-time hobby cataloging Web sites to a $130 billion media company to just another dot.com struggling to remake its business model–all within a span of seven years. Karen Angel walks readers through the company’s history, which is less about geeks and technology than it is about making technology less geeky (i.e., more accessible) to regular people. Along the way, the company’s founders, David Filo and Jerry Yang, learned many invaluable lessons. Inside Yahoo! is not only an interesting book but also an important one."
—Adam L. Penenberg, investigative journalist and coauthor of Spooked: Espionage in Corporate America

"Inside Yahoo! is a drama about people, but it also describes how Yahoo! the brand reflected the impact of the Internet. Initially perceived as a fad, it soon became a part of our lives so that now it is as hard for anyone to imagine life without Yahoo! as it is to imagine life without electricity. Yahoo! helped make the technology become invisible–like the Cheshire Cat."
—John Taysom, founder and Managing Partner, RVC Reuters Greenhouse Fund

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1005565 in Books
• Published on: 2002-04
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 288 pages

Review
"...an accessible, interesting read for anybody interested in the story of one of the companies that shaped the internet as we know it today..." (www.freepint.com - Featured Book, 5 September 2002)

"...anyone who reads this book through...would benefit greatly from their enhanced knowledge of the subject..." (M2 Best Books, 11 September 2002)

"...anyone who reads this book through...would benefit greatly from their enhanced knowledge of the subject..." -- M2 Best Books, 11 September 2002

From the Inside Flap
As both an Internet pioneer and an Internet survivor, Yahoo! is one of the most recognizable brands both inside and outside the online world. From its extensive content and e-commerce offerings to its innovative marketing tactics and strategic partnerships, Yahoo! has continuously proven itself a master of reinvention and sustainability in the fast-paced Internet world.

Inside Yahoo!: Reinvention and the Road Ahead takes you on a fascinating journey through the thoughts, motivations, struggles, and triumphs that have brought Yahoo! to where it is today. Revealing stories of brilliant deals and missed opportunities, the race for innovation, and the constant focus on survival, this book offers a rare inside look at the company and its corporate culture. With access to key players as well as industry experts and financiers, business journalist Karen Angel:

• Examines how two Stanford graduate students established the premier Internet global brand in just a few short years
• Profiles the company’s leaders–from cofounders Jerry Yang and David Filo to CEO Terry Semel, COO Jeff Mallett, and Director Tim Koogle
• Addresses Yahoo!’s recent focus on developing premium services and establishing itself as a bona fide media company

Through an informed and astute narrative, Inside Yahoo! traces the company’s transformation from a twenty-something brainstorm to a onetime Wall Street darling that managed to ride out the recent market shakeout. You’ll read firsthand accounts of how the combination of gifted management, strategic acquisitions, brand leadership, and a long-standing history of service innovation and partnerships has helped Yahoo! through volatile economic environments.

Filled with insights from those who have lived through the Yahoo! experience, Inside Yahoo! is an inspirational story that offers valuable business lessons every investor, manager, and entrepreneur should take to heart–from maintaining a brand identity that everyone will recognize to continuously reinventing your focus to keep ahead of a changing marketplace.

From the Back Cover
Inside Yahoo!
Reinvention and the Road Ahead

"No company better reflects the zeitgeist of the Internet bubble than Yahoo!, which grew from a part-time hobby cataloging Web sites to a $130 billion media company to just another dot.com struggling to remake its business model–all within a span of seven years. Karen Angel walks readers through the company’s history, which is less about geeks and technology than it is about making technology less geeky (i.e., more accessible) to regular people. Along the way, the company’s founders, David Filo and Jerry Yang, learned many invaluable lessons. Inside Yahoo! is not only an interesting book but also an important one."
—Adam L. Penenberg, investigative journalist and coauthor of Spooked: Espionage in Corporate America

"Inside Yahoo! is a drama about people, but it also describes how Yahoo! the brand reflected the impact of the Internet. Initially perceived as a fad, it soon became a part of our lives so that now it is as hard for anyone to imagine life without Yahoo! as it is to imagine life without electricity. Yahoo! helped make the technology become invisible–like the Cheshire Cat."
—John Taysom, founder and Managing Partner, RVC Reuters Greenhouse Fund

Customer Reviews

A competent job, but lacks real insight
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!

Interesting history, maybe a bit dusty.
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.

Very Informative but lacks analysis
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