Henry and David on TimeWarner/AOL
Henry Blodget says sell AOL: “Perhaps synergy is, in fact, bullshit–perhaps the merger was doomed from the moment it popped into Steve Case and Jerry Levin’s bubble-addled heads.”
David Carr on the story: “Time Warner’s current situation is a failure not of strategy, but of execution.” — ouch! I have to say TMZ and In2TV have been great examples since I’ve been here. Of course, I can’t comment on the past couple of years.
Parekh says integration is the key, and points out Mossberg’s brilliant story on the benefits of well-done synergy: “For a more detailed description of how this vertical integration has worked for Apple, see this recent piece by Walter Mossberg.”
… and for a bonus, Henry’s first d’Oh award for the Microsoft+TimeWarner merger meme.
… don’t know what this is about, but it’s kind of funny. Note: I’m not looking for the top slot here–we’ve got a great management team at AOL. I’d settle for being in the top five/ten execs frankly. Where I am in the organization right now (maybe #15 or 20–I’m not sure where I fall on the org chart to be honest) is great. I can have a *decent* impact on the company from my position right now. A *major* impact!?!? Probably not, but time will tell. The way I look at is that if I can get two or three nice wins under my belt for AOL then it becomes a lot easier to justify giving me, my team, and our philosophy more to fix, build, and optimize. AOL’s an amazing asset, and it’s pretty clear to me what we need to do to get back to the #1 or 2 position on the Internet.
