Yahoo! Investors: An Unhappy Lot

LAtimes reports straight from Yahoo's annual shareholder meeting at Santa Clara, CA where 'Yahoo execs defend firm as investors lament results'.

Investors and shareholders were an unhappy lot with the 'executive departures, high compensation packages and the poor performance of the company's stock'. Yahoo Inc which began in 1994 has a current market valuation of $36 billion whereas Google Inc started in 1998 and is worth $157 billion. Besides, Yahoo's company stock has dropped by 9% whereas Google saw an increase of 32%.

More than anything else it seemed like a direct attack to yahoo! CEO Terry Semel, who has been under constant criticism and scrutiny with many giving reasons for why Terry should go. An investor from Palo ALto, Robert Clothier commented, "Terry loves to talk and not say much. But he was less combative than last year. He was really angry about people comparing Yahoo to Google then."

To his defense came Yahoo! co-founder Jerry yang who said the company was reaching its "teenage years". Though Terry Semel says, he still has fire in his belly and that "Yahoo has more opportunity going forward than any other time in its history," prices of Yahoo! was $27.05, a drop of 1.1% or 30 cents.

Yahoo! Still has its legion of followers like typical Surfer who says, “I believe Yahoos! strategy is much more solid long term as they do go out of there way to protect content creators/suppliers. To compare them to google who wrangles the content via court room stunts is a bit disingenius. There are also a lot of "edges" that google plays on like privacy, copyright, SEC reporting. One slip and it goes poof, they have NO friends. Long term Yahoo is on solid foundation, google is still a big question mark.

According to Alexa, Yahoo is No1 in the list of Global Top 500 websites that are updated daily. Yahoo! Board members should take into account that Yahoo! Is a great company just maybe its time for Terry Semel to go.

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