BERKELEY, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Shareholders of Yahoo Inc. are now being confronted by Carl Icahn and the slate of directors he has to replace the current board. The thinking is that the company’s directors screwed up an opportunity to sell to Microsoft Corp. I’ve looked over the current directors of Yahoo and Icahn’s proposed replacements. Here’s what I think of them, keeping in mind that to be on this board it might be useful if you knew something (anything) about computers and the Internet. In some cases, I seriously doubt that the person named even knows how to turn on a computer.
The current Yahoo (YHOO:, , ) board is incredibly mediocre, with two guys from Northwest Airlines Corp. (NWA: , , ) , including the chairman. Let’s look at them:
Jerry Yang, founder. He should not be the chief executive but should be the chairman of the board. Why isn’t he?
Roy Bostock, chairman of the board here and at Northwest Airlines. He’s also a director at Morgan Stanley. Sounds like a professional board guy. What’s this have to do with the Internet?
Ron Burkle, finance guy and Bill Clinton pal. Burkle’s an expert in supermarkets and other things, as well as board member of Occidental Petroleum Corp. What does he bring to the party, knowledge about coal reserves? I doubt he can even use email.
Eric Hippeau. The second of the board members besides Yang who actually knows the business. Negative: He’s been on the board the longest and signed off on too many dumb deals.
Vyomesh Joshi, a VP at Hewlett-Packard Co. Are you kidding me? He’s from the printing division. What’s Yahoo got to do with that?
Arthur Kern. Known as a nice guy. He’s been on the board forever and is the new-media guy. Also must have signed off on a lot of dumb deals.
Robert Kotick, chairman and chief executive of Activision Inc. OK, he’s in the business. Finally!
Ed Kozel. I could be wrong, but Kozel seems like the real sleeper on the board, with a background in technology as well as finance. He’s probably underappreciated.
Maggie Wilderotter. Seems like another lightweight to me; apparently her connection to Microsoft (MSFT:, , ) as a former VP is her real allure. She’s another professional director who’s on various other big-name boards. Must be good at networking.
Gary Wilson, another board member from Northwest Airlines. Yeah, that makes sense. I smell a drinking club!
So this board stinks overall.
That said, at least this group is familiar with the company. Icahn wants to drag in a bunch of out-and-out finance/law guys, along with Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban.

Posted by Zoov on 17 May 2008 03:10 am
Filed Under: Business |