Is the big secret in Silicon Valley finally out? That is, is it a no win-win in signing on as Yahoo board director?
Apparently no one notable wants a seat on the Yahoo board of directors, no matter how well it pays.
Apparently CEO Marissa Mayer has a pretty stringent qualification list regarding board member consideration.
And there in lies a big potential reason why Yahoo has five board members (including Mayer), which is way too small to handle all the needed strategy and guidance on day-to-day decisions, spend strategy and long-term strategy plans, as compared to competitors in the Internet space: Facebook, Google, Microsoft.
Ok, stop chuckling.Or clucking or just outright booing, or clapping, given the scenario.
Many would never put Yahoo in the same sentence, much less the same paragraph, as the tech titans mentioned, but that would be ignorant foolery.
Much like AOL, Yahoo has endured and survived the second greatest recession and neither had any market compelling anchor: Microsoft obviously has software (but open source options are gaining ground), Facebook has lonely people seeing connections (but that is ebbing given new mobile ways to share) and, Google just wants greater loyalty to support its seemingly random innovations, like Glass, and that's putting it simply and we'll soon see how many spent $1500 for its Glass.
But let's return to the big question: why is it so hard to pull in new board members at Yahoo?
The potential reasons are many. Some reports claim the job is nearly a full-time commitment, which doesn't work for CEOs already running their own company, and CIO evangelists who already have a job and don't need any more stress.
Most board members. let's admit it, perform in a part-time role, giving hours from their free or lifestyle timeframe. But apparently not at Yahoo, where reports claim they're treated as if they're fulltime, on-demand staff who are responsible for big decisions. One big one is how Yahoo will spend all the revenue gained through a certain subsidiary this quarter. No wonder two big names left since the start of the new year.
So it's time for Mayer to stop, drop and roll. No one can have it all: a board member who's running their own high-brow successful Internet business while spending 40 hours a week to help fix Yahoo's issues.
It might be time for Mayer to give up her strict 'qualifications' list in favor of luring in those top company chiefs who just love Yahoo for its tenacity and legacy. Maybe, just maybe, she'll have to lower the bar.
Getting a full board in place and organized is key, if not the key, element in turning Yahoo around.
