We’re getting close to the final episode of Silicon Valley’s longest running soap opera,All My Yahoos, starring Marissa Mayer and a host of former leads. Pretty soon, we won’t have the internet’s version of Susan Lucci to kick around anymore. Longtime followers of the show are definitely feeling a little depressed.
I admit to getting a little teary eyed myself when I learned that Verizon had finally agreed to buy Yahoo’s core internet business for $4.8 billion. The plan is to merge Yahoo’s operation with AOL – which Verizon acquired last year for $4.4 billion – under AOL chief Tim Armstrong. At that point, Mayer will presumably exit, stage left.
When the deal closes in the first quarter of next year and Yahoo ceases to operate as an independent company, it will bring to an end one of the most storied and elusive turnaround efforts in tech history. For me, the decade-long saga began with an internal memo by the last Yahoo executive who had a clue, Brad Garlinghouse.
Yahoo Finance