Hey listeners!
Do you remember when you set up your first email address? Well it might have been on Yahoo! - remember them?
They have been pretty quiet over the years, having gone through a complete turnaround from a public company to a private one, selling off a bunch of assets, but they are now back, and we just interviewed their CEO Jim Lanzone, and SVP Head of Yahoo Research Group Eric Feng for a great podcast episode.
In this episode, we cover a range of topics including: Why Yahoo is striking back and the steps it has taken to achieve this. You might not realize this, but Yahoo actually has 700 million users, so it’s still a mighty powerful platform - we discuss what new products they are currently building and how they plan to have multiple touchpoints with the consumer over the coming years. We also learn about the future of search, whether Yahoo would ever launch their own AI models, how they think about launching new products with smaller team sizes in the wake of AI, plus the launch of their latest product - MyScout, the first personalized homepage for AI answers.
Watch or listen now on… YouTube, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify
Takeaways from this episode
The “Modern Vintage” Pivot: How Yahoo is rebranding itself as the “New Balance” of tech, a legacy name finding massive new relevance with Gen Z and Millennials who make up 50% of their 700 million user base.
The “Ironman Suit” Philosophy: Jim explains why he isn’t using AI to replace humans, but rather as a power-suit that allows a “thousands-person” company to compete with the output of a “millions-person” organization.
The “Toys” of a Titan: Why Yahoo has an unfair advantage in the AI race by sitting on 30 years of proprietary “toys” - including a massive interest graph and search history that generic LLMs simply cannot replicate.
The Social Contract of AI: A candid look at why Yahoo prioritizes citing sources and sending traffic back to publishers, arguing that a “closed” AI ecosystem is a death sentence for the quality of the internet.
The Private Equity “Blank Slate”: How spinning out of Verizon and returning to a private structure under Apollo allowed Jim to “deconstruct the cake,” shutting down unprofitable divisions to focus on winning the “F1 race” of consumer internet.
Domain Expertise Over Syntax: Eric’s provocative take on why “being a geek” about finance or sports is now more valuable than being a world-class coder, as AI makes technical execution a commodity.
Chapters in this episode
(0:00) Yahoo’s Founding Story
(3:38) How Yahoo’s CEO Turned Around The Internet Darling
(9:00) Is Yahoo The Trusted Guide To The Internet?
(11:50) Building New Products At Scale
(13:40) AI Models & Their Possibilities?
(20:30) What Does The Future Of Search Actually Look Like?
(22:15) Are We Surprised How Fast AI Has Advanced?
(29:10) How Yahoo Thinks About Hiring Headcount With AI
(32:20) Upskilling Teams On AI
(39:25) Why Develop Multiple User Touchpoints
(44:30) Bursting With Opportunities: What Can Be Achieved
(50:00) Lightning Round
Thanks for listening, see you in the next episode 👋
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