Monday, December 19, 2016
Lost Yahoo
Continuing with the Johnny Mathis view of business:
I want to make the performance perfect so I don't ruin 11 million records.
Mathis sees his job as protecting the investment of his customers, even though most have forgotten him and many are dead. Those people bought his records for a purpose, and he doesn't want to violate their trust.
Compare with Yahoo. For a 'portal' like Yahoo, the trust of its customers is its main asset. Customer loyalty is not just a moral value, it's officially quantified. The list of 500 million names with information is the property Yahoo should be guarding above all.
So naturally, being Yahoo, it doesn't guard the property. Yahoo continued using an old encryption for several years after it was known to be useless. Sort of like a bank using a Yale padlock to secure its vault.
But this was OK because CEO Marissa was ALSO doing everything possible to lose the emotional loyalty of her customers. Eliminating useful services, ruining Flickr, trying hard to lose smart employees. So the loss on the emotional side compensated for the loss on the financial side.
In Marissa Math, a loss plus a loss equals a gain. Or something.
¶ 2:00 AM 
