All Things Digital

Skip to main content.

SEARCH
Voices

Voices

The Voices Feed

from other Web sites

Yahoo Activist: “I Give Up”

October 15, 2008
by Eric Jackson
President, Ironfire Capital

Eric Jackson

For nearly two years, I’ve been engaged in an activist campaign aimed at improving the performance of Yahoo (YHOO). No more. I sold my fund’s stake last month. The risk/reward ratio of continuing to hold the stock had become too high.

When I started my activism with Yahoo, I was attracted to the Internet company’s strong brand, which continues to drive impressive traffic to its many popular properties. It’s still the No. 2 search engine in the world and it’s also No. 1 for email.

Any new Web company has no hope of emulating those numbers. Microsoft (MSFT), with its online services division, has been trying to achieve credible numbers in all those areas for the last 12 years–with little success to show for its efforts.

Read the rest of this post

Eric Jackson is the Founder and Managing Member of Ironfire Capital LLC, an activist hedge fund. In 2007, he founded the “Yahoo! Plan B” group, a Web-based group of 150 Yahoo shareholders who own more than 3.2 million shares, in a campaign to change the company’s direction.

Tagged: Microsoft, Voices, Yahoo, , , , , , , | permalink
« Previous Post
Next Post »

Featured Voices Posts

Featured Video

View All Jobs | Post a Job Job Listings

A sponsored service from SimplyHired

Voices Posts by Date

About Voices

This is a section of the All Things Digital Web site featuring posts from around the Web, from other Dow Jones properties and also original pieces we solicit. The section is now explicitly labeled that it comes "from other Web sites."

We are fully aware of the controversies around how linking and aggregating is done on the Web and we, in no way, are attempting to "scrape" original content created by others. Instead, regarding third-party posts, we are trying to point readers of this site to other posts from around the Web that we admire and are trying to do so in the quickest manner possible.

The Internet is full of terrific content that is not ours and we want to help our readers find it by making editorial suggestions--Look, Mom, no algorithm!--of posts we think are worth their time.

That is why we have made even more changes to Voices to ensure we do this in the most transparent and timely way. While we don't expect that everyone will agree with our policies, we have made changes that reflect our intent in pointing to content outside our site.

So here is exactly what we do: Read more »

About the Site

Because the site is wholly owned by Dow Jones, publisher of The Wall Street Journal, we aim to adhere to the journalistic standards of the best of the mainstream media. But, because it is run autonomously as a small online startup, we aim to exhibit the fresh thinking and nimbleness of the best of the new media. We want to be first, and sassy, but also well sourced and accurate. We will offer lots of opinion and analysis, but plenty of fact as well.

Read more »