Influx

Everything is going crazy over at Yahoo as the brightest and the best leave the ship.

(Grant seems to have all the details and more in his post).

Yahoo was a brand that shone bright at the earliest part of the internet revolution, but it failed to keep pace with the times. However, the recent years have not been without hope. The company made two great acquisitions in Flickr and deli.icio.us- leading edge 2.0 companies with really smart founders, and really nice brands.

Everyone understands the smart thing to do with nascent brands is to let them be, give them space and autonomy as soon as you start screwing around with them all hell breaks loose.

However, in this supposed war for the most talented, shouldn’t companies really be paying more attention to the people who created these entities?

For as much as they are buying the power and uniqueness of these new brands, they are also buying the talent of their creators, who’s needs also have to be nurtured.

Time after time companies fail to capitalize on the talent they acquire because they can’t find a way for it to fit into the culture or the culture itself crushes them.

Yahoo really need Stewart Butterfield, Caternina Fake  and Joshua Schacter to spearhead the development and build out of Yahoo 2.0.

Why that really never happened, only the insiders will know, but clearly companies need to plan their acquisitions better and pay closer attention to the talent they are buying, rather than focusing their thinking on scaling through their system or saving costs by eliminating  duplication and inefficiency.

Of course, Stewart Butterfield had the last laugh with his zany resignation letter, that tells his boss- he’s thankful for his 87 years of service and doesn’t need no gold watch.

Reading between the lines, it’s clear giant corporate culture crushed his spirit and energy just at the time when Yahoo most needed those qualities.

Posted by Ed Cotton