Yahoo's sale: This feels like the end of the road
SAN FRANCISCO — A wave of nostalgia swept over me when Verizon acquired what is essentially the core of Yahoo for $4.8 billion today.
Flashback nearly two decades, to 1998, when then-Yahoo CEO Tim Koogle (remember him?) and Chief Operating Officer Jeff Mallett transformed Yahoo from a search engine into the Internet's most popular site. The quintessential Internet start-up was hailed as the model of the New Economy, and its stock touched a record near $200 in 2000.
But by early 2001, Koogle stepped down amid disappointing revenue and as a new force emerged on the Internet landscape: Google.
Go back a decade, to 2008, when Microsoft offered $44.6 billion in stock and cash for Yahoo — a deal Yahoo's board spurned. "After careful evaluation, the board believes that Microsoft's proposal substantially undervalues Yahoo," the board said in a statement. By then, another new online start-up had emerged: Facebook.
Over the next four years, Yahoo churned through four CEOs — Jerry Yang, Carol Bartz, Scott Thompson and Ross Levinsohn — before it settled on Marissa Mayer, a former Google executive.
A history of Yahoo leadership in 6 charts
What Mayer inherited was a rudderless company that had been eclipsed by Google and Facebook, both in users and ad revenue. She vowed to turn Yahoo around with a flurry of acquisitions that failed to turn around revenue and user growth, leading to the auctioning of its core assets such as Tumblr, search engine, email, and news and sports sites.
Which leads us to today, and Verizon's deal. It not only signals the end of Yahoo's days as an independent company but the end of an era. For many, Yahoo was their first portal (remember that word?) to the World Wide Web, an all-in-one site where they could communicate via email and instant messenger, shop, scan news and sports, and view videos and photos.
An era of specialization changed that, with the advent of Google (search), shopping (Amazon), news viewing (Twitter and Facebook), and video and photos (Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube). It was all too much for any company, especially a company as fractious as Yahoo.
Perhaps Verizon can help matters. Its lineup of online properties include AOL, Engadget, TechCrunch and Huffington Post.
Who knows? It might even work. The addition of Yahoo, coupled with its other online properties, puts Verizon on par with the likes of Google and Facebook. Silicon Valley companies can roar back, as Apple and others have proven.
Follow USA TODAY San Francisco Bureau Chief Jon Swartz @jswartz on Twitter.