People often tend to regret the decisions they have made in the past because of the information available to them and that decision has aligned with their needs during that time. While sometimes people enjoy those decisions but mostly they regret them, one such instance is the former CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer, who regrets her decision of buying Tumblr over Netflix.
Recently, during an interview the former CEO of Yahoo regrets her decision to not buy the streaming platform, which has now become one of the biggest streaming platforms earning nearly $8.16 billion in revenue only in the first quarter of 2023. Meanwhile, Tumblr has a mere net revenue of only $263,000. After Marissa Mayer’s interview was made public, people around the world were appalled and went onto Twitter to share their reactions on Twitter.
Marissa Mayer Regrets Three Decisions During Her Time At Yahoo
During her interview with Emerging Tech Brew, Marissa Mayer was asked if she could have altered any decision when she was at the top of Yahoo. Mayer replied that she regrets taking three decisions that she would have done differently. Marissa Mayer shared the first reason was an obvious one, that is hiring a different COO.
“My perspective on Yahoo is there are probably three things I would have done differently. One is obvious—I hired the wrong COO; I would have hired a different COO. I would have hired [current Integral Ad Science CEO] Lisa Utzschneider, who became my chief revenue officer. And that would have been great.”
Mayer added that she regrets buying Tumblr over Hulu or Netflix in 2013 which would have given them a better transformative acquisition than the micro-blogging company.
“We looked at a transformative acquisition, and we bought Tumblr. At the same time, we were also considering whether it was possible to buy Hulu or, ironically, Netflix. And I think Netflix was $4 billion and Hulu was at $1.3 billion at the time. And either of those, with hindsight being 20/20, would have been a better acquisition.”
Lastly, the former CEO of Yahoo shared that the biggest regret would be not doing the “tax-free Alibaba spinoff to separate the assets of the company.” She added how taking that decision would have saved billions of dollars for the company’s stakeholders and helped them in having better revenue.
“And probably the biggest one—if you made me name just one—is that we should have done the tax-free Alibaba spinoff to separate the assets of the company. Because one, if we had done that, it would have saved $10 billion for our shareholders or made them that money, whichever way you look at it, in taxes that were paid.”
“And two, it would have allowed Yahoo to continue as an independent company, and it would have potentially had more success. Now it is an independent company and privately held by private equity. But I’m not sure that the foray through Verizon was as helpful to some of the technologies and what they had to offer as it could have been.”
While Marissa Mayers regrets making three decisions during her tenure at Yahoo, Twitter users were quick to go to the platform and share their thoughts on the platform, making the former CEO regret her decision even more.
People Share Their Opinion on Twitter
When people learned that Yahoo bought Tumblr over Netflix and Hulu, they were quick to share their opinion on the platform, sharing all sorts of comments and gifs to make the company regret their decision, and have a laugh at the technology company for their decision in 2013. The users were unapologetic as one of them tweeted how the company “f**ked up big time.”
Lmao yeah they did and they fucked up big time. pic.twitter.com/OtRW9NqGWL
— AHMED AMEEN (@sheikahmedameen) May 6, 2023
Another user tweeted that the company should look into its management as they have made a catastrophic mistake.
Yahoo is definitely a case study in mismanagement lol
— Dean Winchester (@TheDeanWin) May 6, 2023
Another user shared how the company lost the opportunity to make huge sums of money by throwing the plan into a trash can and tossing a grenade into the bin.
They threw the bag in the trash and tossed a grenade in it
— Eric. (@wakanda_4life) May 6, 2023
Another user tweeted how they forgot about the existence of the company before the news.
I legit forgot that Yahoo existed until this tweet
— Regular, Non-Holiday Andy (@spandy_endlove) May 6, 2023
Another user shared that Yahoo has taken a massive loss by simply tweeting “L.”
L
— Scopey_13 (@Scopey_13) May 6, 2023
Another user reminded the people how the company was supposed to buy Google but they missed out on that opportunity as well. Adding that the company tends to make terrible business decisions.
Yahoo also had the chance to buy google too. A company that keeps making terrible decisions.
— Codename Dutchess (@Jimmy_Stick) May 6, 2023
It is difficult to say why Yahoo tends to make disastrous business decisions that affect them financially, but this comes as no surprise that Netflix has surely become a bigger name than the technology company, where people can watch their favorite shows and movies suiting their needs and demands.
Source: Emerging Tech Brew
