valleywag - No one wants to buy Yahoo. And the only person who wants to run Yahoo is an insider who helped sink it. Is there any hope left for the beleaguered Web giant?
A ludicrously patchy trial balloon lifted off this week, airing the notion that Microsoft might fund some kind of complex buyout of Yahoo, at a knockdown price of $20 billion — less than half what Microsoft offered last February. It was swiftly shot down: If Microsoft wanted to get its hands on Yahoo, why would it loan someone else the money to buy it?
Another tall tale is making the rounds: that Sue Decker, Yahoo's president, is still a candidate to replace founder Jerry Yang, who's stepping down from the CEO job after a disastrous year and a half. (Anyone care to bet on whether one of the "sources familiar with the search" who told CNET News that Decker was a contender was Decker herself?)
Decker, a former investment banker, wrecked her credibility with Wall Street through overoptimistic forecasts. Never a strong manager, she similarly killed whatever loyalty Yahoos had left for her through her mistreatment of key underlings. (She had Wenda Harris Millard, Yahoo's former U.S. sales chief, locked out of her office over the weekend when Millard told Decker she was planning to leave — and only months later thought to invite Millard to a farewell party, which Millard refused to attend.)
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