If you could ask Carol one thing…

Posted May 13th, 2009 at 11:04 pm by Nicki Dugan, Blog Editor

 20 Comments / Filed in: Behind the Scenes, Conferences/Events

Carol Bartz, our (newish) CEO, has been Yahoo!’s fearless leader for exactly four months. And in that time, I think it’s fair to say she has handily won the hearts and minds of Yahoos the world over. She’s candid, accessible, a quick study, and has an incomparable way with colorful one-liners. She’s made some tough calls, but maintaining status quo wasn’t in her job description. She sees the world through the eyes of a customer (both consumers and partners) and that’s more than half the battle. And you clearly liked what she had to say when she stopped by in February.

In two weeks, Carol will sit in conversation with Kara Swisher at the annual D: All Things Digital conference. In honor of this first public appearance, she’s agreed to an exclusive Q&A with Yodel Anecdotal. We invite you, dear reader, to submit whatever questions you’d like us to ask. We’re squeezing into her calendar so we can’t get to all of them, but we’d love your input. Fair game might be topics like “Why did you take this job?,” “What do you think needs fixing at Yahoo!,” “What’s your favorite website?,” and “Why do you like cheese so much?.”

Please submit your questions via ycorpblog [at] yahoo-inc [dot] com no later than 5pm PT next Tuesday (May 19th). We’ll post her answers on May 27th. Please include your name, city, and whether you’d prefer to be anonymous. And make it good!

Nicki Dugan
Blog Editor

Tagged: Behind the Scenes, carol bartz

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20 Comments Add your own

bAbel. | May 13th, 2009 at 11:09 pm

With the newspaper industry suffering, if newspapers go down, which would affect AP and the wires, would that affect Yahoo!? If so, how?

bAbel.

INAMINUTE | May 13th, 2009 at 11:13 pm

Can you make arragements for possible tours of Yahoo corporation(s) for public schools elementary to high school, even college give the youth a first-hand encounter of inside Yahoo, this may stimulate interest in the future generations working for Yahoo.

BrandonWIFI | May 14th, 2009 at 12:00 am

Now that you have been on board long enough what was your biggest surprise in terms of what Yahoo! is good at and what was your biggest disappointment?

Stefano | May 14th, 2009 at 12:30 am

A new Yahoo! homepage: when will it be on line?

Massimo Moruzzi | May 14th, 2009 at 12:49 am

Yahoo! loves to think of itself as of a mass-market “media” company, yet Apple (iTunes) is leading the way in music, and Hulu.com is leading the way in video. So, what does “media company” really mean – that you stick banners on Yahoo! Mail pages?

krishna | May 14th, 2009 at 7:02 am

I am just curious to ask this question. We all know how popular blog is … “when Google has acquired blogger.com and opened it for everyone why hasn’t Yahoo tried to come up with a blogger like platform?”.

Lorenzo A | May 14th, 2009 at 8:03 am

Right now Yahoo seems unconnected and stagnant. How are Yahoo’s services being united so that information is shared within the Yahoo network, a.l.a. Windows Live and improved based on feedback from consumers and business users?

Bruiser | May 14th, 2009 at 9:41 am

With the number of complaints concerning the changes to Y!Profiles, such as removing aliases and trying to turn profiles into MySpace, do you plan to continue wasting resources on these unwanted changes?

Brinke | May 14th, 2009 at 2:50 pm

When will that great new front door design go live? I love it, but it only stays on my page for like 10 minutes..and it’s gone! I WANT my Yahoo!

Jen | May 14th, 2009 at 3:42 pm

which yahoo products do you use the most and why?

Ex Employee Who Quit | May 15th, 2009 at 5:21 am

Yahoo! is full of employees that are creating just hierarchies of decision making. These idiots have been pushing out products that they think are cool without any (or with manipulative) field/user study. Marketing techniques, user support, innovative ideas are all a big big mess in there. My question is, when are you planning to fire all those idiots?

PS: If done seriously, it’s a long list.

JB | May 15th, 2009 at 5:58 am

My question relates to Yahoo’s international investments:

Yahoo Japan, Alibaba.com + Alibaba Group, and GMarket

Yahoo agreed to sell Gmarket to EBay….is it also considering selling the Asian assets?

If not, what is the long-term view regarding these assets?

Note: Jim Cramer’s analysis (May 14th) showed the international assets valued at $5 per share…..which seems to be double the carrying value on Yahoo’s most recent financials….could you explain the difference? And why wouldn’t Yahoo carry the assets at market value?

Miramon | May 15th, 2009 at 7:32 am

The article says:

Fair game might be topics like “Why did you take this job?,” “What do you think needs fixing at Yahoo!,” “What’s your favorite website?,” and “Why do you like cheese so much?.”

If those last three are fair game, three out of four examples being pointless fluff, that means to me that there is no intention of having Ms. Bartz answer any interesting or challenging questions.

Nicki Dugan | May 15th, 2009 at 9:54 am

Thanks for the thoughtful questions, everyone. Getting some great and quite varied content via email as well. We’ll try to squeeze in as much of these as Carol has time for.

@Miramon – Fair observation, particularly as it relates to cheese. :) But as Carol is no shrinking violet, I’d wager to guess this Q&A will make for an insightful and entertaining read. Guess the proof will be in the pudding.

mementototem | May 15th, 2009 at 8:34 pm

I’m a fan of Yahoo! (but I not use all of Yahoo! products)

I want to all of Yahoo! products link together with same look and feel and profiles, go in the same way, not like this, (some page look modern style but some page is very old)

What do you want? Seperate each product to have own page style or let’s all to same style?

ps. Sorry for my bad english grammar.

Kathy | May 15th, 2009 at 11:32 pm

OK…putting hardball questions aside (for a moment): If this chapter of your leadership had a soundtrack, what would it be and why?

Miramon | May 18th, 2009 at 7:45 am

OK, how about these:

1. Revenues and profits have been decreasing. Regardless of the reasons for the downturn, what is your plan for making Yahoo a vital and profitable company?

2. Do you think there is any chance that Yahoo can beat Google consistently in any Google market? If the answer to this is yes, please identify the markets and explain your reasoning.

3. Do you agree that Parmesan is truly the king of cheeses?

David | May 19th, 2009 at 12:09 pm

When are you planning to come visit us in the Burbank office?

Another Ex-Yahoo | May 22nd, 2009 at 9:43 am

I left over two years ago because I felt that management at Yahoo failed to recognize, develop, promote, and retain its talented employees. Since then, a lot of my colleagues have followed my suit and have gone off to Microsoft, Google, and other companies.

What are you doing to recognize, develop, promote, and retain your more talented employees? What are you doing to clean up the management layers?

How are you going to try to cox back ex-Yahoos back into the fold?

Richard Roberts | May 24th, 2009 at 5:05 pm

What is yahoo creating for the upcoming digital convergence (hd home theater and computing combined)? would Yahoo like to own hd home theater domains. I own 6 domains they are parked.
hdhometheater.org
hdhometheater.info
hdhometheater.us
hdhometheater.biz
hometheater.org.uk
1080hometheater.com