Lei Fengnet (search "Lei Feng Net" public concern) : July 24, Eastern Time, according to "The New York Times" quoted a source reported that the Yahoo Board of Directors finally decided to $ 4.8 billion in price will Yahoo's core Internet business The assets were transferred to Verizon, one of the top four operators in the United States. This article is from the Chinese quotient of the public number, and the author Bi Yajun. This article is an analysis in April this year. It talks about the reason behind Yahoo's failure. No one thought that Yahoo would be such a great start. No one expected it to be this way. Tragic ending.
Yahoo is going to die, this time it is true.
On April 18, after numerous struggles, salvation, and rebirth, this once great company that found the Internet business model, the first $100 billion market value, and created the miracle of the Internet economy, announced that as long as someone bids about 4 billion to 80 With billions of dollars, it is possible to take away the core assets of the Internet that once disregarded the world.
The current market feedback is that buyers are only willing to bid 3 billion US dollars at most (the market feedback in April is currently Verizon plans to purchase 4.8 billion US dollars), compared with the glory of its market value of over 130 billion US dollars in 2000, a bit like It is sending a Hanako.
The innovative pioneer who brightened the global internet money and spiritual stars with dazzling light, will soon end up with the laggard's label and shame. A man who created history is thus destroyed by history.
No one thought of Yahoo's great start, but no one expected it to be such a tragic ending. What's even more embarrassing is that from incompetence to almost nothing, the internet tragedies. It took only 16 years to sing.
How did the dream company, which once held a card of heaven, play dead and how bad it was?
How did success come from? This is a big issue that is related to whether or not the function is continuous.
A company's success path varies, but it can be roughly divided into two types: First, people's ability plays a decisive factor for success; second, time and place are favorable factors, and interpersonal relationship is an important prerequisite for success.
Another common rule among them is that in an initial outbreak in which an industry starts from scratch and competition is limited, success is often an opportunity greater than capacity, and chance is greater than necessity. But further down the road, the competition continues to intensify, the industry is from good to good, from good to differentiated, and if you want to continue to succeed or defend success, your ability will gradually become proportional to success. The inevitable thing will dominate the fate of the participants. .
After Yahoo's rapid rise as a global cyber hegemony, many people equated its success with the wise and talented founding and management team, and even thought that their inevitable ability created an inevitable Yahoo. But this is not the case. The real wonders of creating Yahoo! are more about weather, geography, and influencing relationships. Its founding and management teams are just fortunate enough to be riding on these things.
The birth of Yahoo itself is an accident. The founding of Yahoo is not a product of careful planning by Yang Zhiyuan and Filo, but they just discovered the problem of the isolated information on the Internet at the time and they just came up with a solution to the problem from their own experience. So they happened to accidentally Just do it.
Photo: Yang Zhiyuan and Filo
The decline of Yahoo actually began at the moment of the peak of the station.
Since that moment, more and more people have gained a deeper understanding of the Internet. After careful planning and thoughtful consideration, they have joined the new round of development and layout of the Internet. This has driven the ever-increasing competition in the industry and continuously differentiated products and services. It also makes the inevitable ability become the key to win in the future.
In this context, if Yahoo broke out in accidents, days, and geography, it would only be a matter of time before it could be eliminated if it could not quickly fill up the inevitable ability. Its subsequent decline was only repeated one after another. This was proved again and again, and it also proved that its original and later inevitability was nothing more than that.
Li Ka-shing once said that for him, one of the prettiest beggars was the most embarrassing thing in calculating the gains and losses in advance. In this sense, Yahoo's previous success is not a beautiful encounter itself.
There is also a saying that Germany does not have a place and there must be plagues. If this German word is understood as the inevitable ability to succeed in the Internet industry, Yahoo, once so successful, is in fact a morally unfit person. This is also a major premise of its subsequent decline. If you understand this, you will know that its decline is not unusual.
What lessons and inspirations are there? I think the most important are two things:
First, if your success is more of a rapid outbreak of opportunity than an inevitable ability, you should be careful and pay attention to make up your class. Otherwise, how do you come back?
Second, if you are someone of a certain ability, be confident to challenge those who fly because of the opportunity, rather than complain that they did not have the opportunity, or think that really successful guy really how powerful.
Yahoo tells you it may not be so powerful.
| Look at the trend, the wrong wayMany people think that it was Yang Zhiyuan and the team that had no foresight and misunderstood the trend that led to Yahoo's defeat. As a person who knows Yahoo and Yang Zhiyuan better, I don't think this view is objective.
The major trend of the Internet, Yang Zhiyuan saw and saw 10 years ago. When I published the first document of the Chinese entrepreneurial strategy (WeChat id:hstl8888) in 2005, I had repeatedly visited Yangbye late at night and reported Yang Zhiyuan and Yahoo comprehensively and authoritatively. At that time, Yang Zhiyuan, who had already invested in becoming the largest shareholder of Alibaba and was very optimistic about e-commerce, once stated clearly outside the e-commerce community that community, content, search, and personalization were the four strategic cores of the Internet in the future.
This is not the trend of the Internet development in these years?
Having spotted the trend of the future, the wrong way to win the future is Yahoo's fatal injury.
Yahoo's first wrongdoing is the future of search and content. Yang Zhiyuan and Fei Luo founded Yahoo to make it easier for people to get the information they want on the Internet. It allows Yahoo to always help people obtain the most desired information in the most convenient way. It is also the search and content of Yang Zhiyuan and Filo. Long-term dreams.
Yang Zhiyuan said that to achieve this goal requires three conditions: First, comprehensive: information is very rich; Second, worldwide: can find useful information around the world; Third, the brand: to make the Internet users all over the world know Yahoo!.
What he said is correct, but how comprehensive, cosmopolitan, branding is it? Yahoo has taken the wrong treasure.
Initially, Yahoo was essentially a content search company. Their pages were once more similar to today's professional search engines. But walking, Yahoo feels that relying on search means "content is still someone else's." They have to master their own content, and they do so quickly, moving toward portals and media companies. And then what happened today is ridiculous: When the global Internet acceleration turned to technology-driven content or even everything, Yahoo!, the global Internet hegemony, has returned to tradition and has devoted much of its energy to manual content.
Figure: stat counter has released the United States search site market share
As a result, the tragedy occurred quickly, and the technology-driven content quickly reached the point where manual death could not do so much. Yahoo quickly discovered that Google’s search box, which has nothing at all, is the best way to help people get the most information they need most. The best way to find content and brands is also sadly It became the Google box with "content is someone else."
Among them, it is embarrassing to also include that Yahoo not only misunderstood the content and the search for the future, but also to save the search business investment, used to personally cultivate a new way of dying their own content and search - Google. This kind of short-term interest in the expense of the cat and the same bed with the cat, in the subsequent cooperation with Microsoft even actually happened again, and similarly accelerated the rhythm of their own death.
Even after seeing Google's popularity, Yahoo began to pay more attention to search, and acquired Inktomi and Overture to strengthen the development of search marketing. For a long time, they are still obsessed with defining the content and search centered on the portal. More dramatic and tragic, Overture, which was acquired by Yahoo, is in fact the inventor of Google's rapidly growing paid-click business model. Obviously, Yahoo did not make good use of this resource and opportunity.
The wrong way to search and content was lost and Yahoo lost a big game. Missed the content, the future of the community, and missed the mobile Internet, it allowed Yahoo to recover the game and completely bury himself.
This is well-known. In the turbulent tide of mobile Internet, Yahoo has not developed a good product that is applauded and called. It also missed the opportunity to seize the high ground of mobile Internet through acquisition. Once, one billion US dollars could win the opportunity of the current market value of 300 billion U.S. dollars (Facebook), but in order to give away 150 million U.S. dollars, they gave Facebook life, but also cut off now it seems that they are out of desperation. The last big opportunity.
Of course, then again. According to Yahoo's later performance, even if they received Facebook, they may still die. It's just that there will be an unlucky Facebook name.
There is one more thing to ponder about this history. In fact, it is far more than Yahoo, but it is a large number of people who have succeeded in Internet in the same period as Yahoo. When many people ridiculed Yahoo's erroneous Dabao, many domestic portal sites and investors actually made the same mistakes Yahoo!
That year, Li Yanhong returned to China to found Baidu and took his search box to find people to invest. The first sentence of many website owners and investors is that each website does not have a search window. What can be done. When Ma Huateng took QQ to find these people, it was not given one million pieces. He was even humiliated: I could change the chat room to yours in minutes.
The real development of the Internet, which lasted for only thirty years, has been on the rise and decline, how many bloods and tears, how many experiences, and how many lessons!
And what I experienced from the deepest is two things:
First, the things that make you successful today may really be the reason why you fail tomorrow. From the experience of Yahoo, the reason why it was defeated so badly was largely because he had won so much.
Second, in terms of the Internet, studying the future is more important than studying trends. Even the same is true for other industries and industries.
In terms of trends, humankind's needs have not changed much for thousands of years. It is nothing more than food, clothing, shelter, warmth, passion, better, and better. But the way to meet demand is always changing and getting faster and faster.
The greatest revelation of Yahoo and the many who have been so successful and finally failing is that you look at the trend of demand, but also depends on how the demand will come out. An equally important lesson is that if you are an industry leader, you are often defeated by people who are not even in the same way as you are even in an industry, but are different from you and different, but with different new ways. People who want to meet the needs you meet.
For those who need to challenge the giants, subvert the industry, and make great achievements, if your products and services are not fundamentally different from the ones you want to subvert, you may want to succeed, but subvert the industry. Great achievements, I still forget it. For example, when we talk about a lot of mystical things, we finally come up with a cheaper mobile phone and a cheaper TV. This is probably not a subversion, but it is not enough to die by yourself. It is also necessary to pull a bend. People backing up, there is no sense of shit about industrial progress.
The so-called development perspective, the so-called strategic thinking, and the perspective of this development, this strategy should not only focus on the size of development, but also pay attention to the abnormalities and variability of development methods.
Seeing the community, content, search, and personalization will continue to boom Yahoo, if the way to see Facebook early, Google's approach is the future, perhaps not today.
The way Facebook and Google now use will always be replaced by new methods. If they can't become the masters of that new method, Yahoo will certainly be able to reunite with them in the middle of history.
If you can make a good loser, even if you miss the opportunity to become Google, even if you miss the opportunity to buy Facebook, Yahoo will not fall into the sad reminder of today's dog-like dog.
After more than 10 years of observing commercial rivers and lakes, one lesson I learned is that many people will have a "successful disease" after they succeed. The easier it is for people who are more likely to succeed, the easier it is to get the disease. The more successful it is, People who have succeeded quickly, especially those who quickly become bosses, are more likely to get the disease.
The obvious illness of this disease is that it has fallen behind or even failed, but it continues to indulge in the way I am the boss, continue to solve problems with the thinking and the way of a boss, and try to find the glory of that year. Some of those who are seriously ill will also be defeated, quarreled, anxious, have their own failures attributed to others, embark on a disobedient course against others, like red-eyed gamblers, and have been led by others. The situation where the nose walks and you want to continue betting on big wins and big wins, but in the end, the more you lose, the more you lose your guts and the more you lose your life.
A good loser will face the reality, seek truth from facts, stand in backward positions and the position of the second child and the oldest, analyze the pros and cons objectively and rationally, and then start again, even from the beginning with the mind and field of vision. Planning, come again. Do not return to the boss, stabilize the second child, the second child is also unsteady, then stay in Castle Peak, put down the figure, be a small but well done, keep the life, live, wait for the wind to regain, the return of the king, is also There is hope.
Yahoo's failure to survive will be so tragic. To a large extent, this is not something that can be done, nor will it be a small "successful disease." Looking at the strategies adopted after it is in a backward state, many are not an excellent loser, a performance that the most important people who survived should have.
You can see that it has already fallen into a younger brother, but until the end, they are still in the attitude and attitude of the boss, rich and powerful, rampage, billions of billions, billions of dollars in mergers and acquisitions, to face the face of live sin, to fight a full face fat , unrealistic, and eventually come to this dismal situation.
On the contrary, if it can face reality in the beginning, turn down the target, lay down its position, seek truth from facts, retreat forward, and reposition itself, aiming at a promising future focus. The hero will break his arm and finish his battle with his brand, resources, and team. Even if you study with many of your Chinese students, you will be able to pay more than today. You know, NetEase's market value is still more than 20 billion US dollars today, it is almost Yahoo Internet assets (excluding Ali equity value, and 16 years ago it was worth 130 billion US dollars, but also just 10 times the Internet assets).
The boss did not fight back, the second child even more did not play, and finally did not even settle down. Of course, there are objective reasons why the successes of past successes have abducted them too deeply. However, subjectively I am the boss and I am the leader. How can I be as successful as a small company? Obstacles.
Being able to afford it, let it go, and not being arrogant and failing is what we often say. But when it comes to real problems, especially after falling from Pingyun, how many more people can really do it? This seems to be a mentality issue. It is an illusion. However, it is a real and important point that leads to or even dominates the real world. Leading cadres at all levels and the masses of the people must really be careful.
This is particularly important for those who are used to a high score. What days can be spent, and what days can be used to benefit, is obviously more than talk of the spotlight, and the applause of flowers in the applause is more important.
The decline of Yahoo, of course, is not just these reasons. The leadership and personality of the founders, the lantern managers, and even among all the giant Internet companies, Yahoo, the last 10 years in the past, is basically the only company with no real masters, etc., all of which are problems and a series of problems. It was also said that Yang Zhiyuan’s refusal to sell to Microsoft that year was a mistake. This depends on how to see if the focus is on how to continue the business, "son" has changed its name, and also discussed "son" selling expensive and expensive, it seems that it should not be intended.
Even I personally think that even if everything is right, these may only account for 50% of the reasons. The remaining 50% is called luck.
For example, the acquisition of Google, the acquisition of Facebook, the difference between the results of that can not be considered, how much is not accidental and luck?
For so many reasons, I particularly emphasize these three above. One important reason is that I always have a hunch that the three major causes of the decline of Yahoo will soon be concentrated in the Chinese business community.
Since China’s reform and opening up, we have used more than 30 years to quickly unlock the development and wealth opportunities that closed behind the country, lagging behind and battered for hundreds of years (also under the command of Majesty), and created a large number of successes.
When this kind of release cannot be continued today, business and industry are just like Yahoo!'s Internet environment. How many of us have the same rapid success as Yahoo? My estimate is that many.
Yahoo's story is a bad story and it is a good story. This story is worth reading.
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