Calling it…
Props to JZ or calling it like it is on his blog:
JZ: “It makes me sad because I end up thinking about how Yahoo! Finance has stagnated for a long time. It never really recovered from the pain of the dotcom crash. So many of my old Finance coworkers have either left the company or moved on to other groups (several moved into Search last year). Heck, I encouraged many of them to get out! There was a lack of leadership and, even more importantly, a serious LACK OF VISION. It really disappointed me.”
Dang, ‘dems fighting words where I come from!
Truth is, Yahoo is lucky to have someone like JZ in their ranks.
Having spent the last ~120 days at a big company I’m shocked, but not surprised, at how folks are allowed to coast for so long without getting called out. Sometimes I’ll get on a conference call or be in a meeting and things are totally out of whack. Rome is burning, we’re getting our ass kicked, and veryone is sitting their being all nice and courteous to each other. At that moment I think to myself “should I call this person out for being lame in front of everyone else and risk alienating with my aggressiveness?” A couple of times I’ve tried to convince myself to bite my tongue, but then I realize that the reason I’m here is to shake things up and I pull the shotgun out and let them have it: BANG!!!
You know what the result is when you call folks out in these big companies? Things start to get better, people start getting motivated, and the truth starts to come out.
Watching JZ take his own people to task publicly like this is inspiring, and if Yahoo ever fires him for doing it I’m gonna hire him to work at AOL as a full-time ombudsmen!
