When Jim Lanzone was at the helm on Yahoo in 2021, he saw more than a legacy internet brand struck by years of corporate failure. He saw the opportunity. Lanzon is a serial turnaround specialist with Ask Jeeves, CBS Interactive, Tinder’s Ask Jeeves, CBS Interactive and Tinder’s stints, and considered Yahoo a “turn around white whale.”
“This is the third turnaround for the top 10 internet companies,” Lanzone said in an exclusive conversation with luck At the Cannes Lions. “We had to rebuild our team and our company from scratch.”
Three and a half years after he is called “Plusphase Turnaround – Fixed Innovation to Reconstruction,” Lanzon is implementing a transformation strategy that touches everything from product development to cultural updates. Everything is based on simple beliefs.
First product, always
At the heart of Lanzone’s philosophy is lasers that focus on product quality.
“Everything about a major consumer internet company has to start with the product,” he said.
Boasting a category leadership in assets like Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Fantasy, Yahoo has refreshed all the key products it offers.
“For the past nine months, every pixel on Yahoo has been new,” Lanzone said. “Every product we operate is completely new.”
He argues that only after modifying the user experience can a company rekindle its love for the brand.
“We can’t do that until we actually fix the product first,” he said. “Especially at consumer internet companies where people live their breathing products they use every day.”
“I want to run towards the fire” Yahoo’s poaching talent
Translation is not limited to the user interface. Lanzone has redesigned Yahoo’s structure and is recruiting top-notch talent from Silicon Valley.
“It surprised people how many people wanted to run towards the Yahoo fire,” he said. “We brought in a great team, and I think it got a lot of reliability pretty quickly.”
The jump was Josh Line, the chief marketing director who joined from Paramount Global, and Rob Wilk, Yahoo’s global consumer sales director.
This reliability was essential for Yahoo’s second act under Apollo Global Management, a private equity company that acquired Yahoo from Verizon for less than $5 billion in 2021.
It’s far from the sun surgery, Yahoo has become one of the Apollo’s fastest return deal.
“The playbook here for them is growing,” Lanzone said. “We’re not only trying to extract value from parts, we’re building it here, but we’re bringing one Yahoo into a great sustainable company for the next 30 years.”
How Lanzon will turn businesses around
As a product veteran, Lanzon places data at the heart of every decision. “The first thing you look at is data,” he explained. “Who’s using it, how often, what do they like about it? What do they hate about it?”
Despite the pivots of Yahoo’s corporate stories, the company’s loyal user base was never shaken – including stints under Verizon and attempts to become a media and entertainment conglomerate.
“What we quickly realized was that we were the strongest places and they were using Yahoo for the same reasons they were 30 years ago,” Lanzone said. “We were a reliable guide to the internet.
The original Yahoo motto – “Always under construction” – takes on a new meaning. “We have to constantly evolve,” he said.
Z surprise for my beloved at.com
Perhaps most surprising is Yahoo’s traction with younger users, even for Lanzone. “We’re amazed at the top five Gen Z,” he said. “Half of the audience is ZZ and millennials.”
At the heart of the transformation is the cultural reset. It is rooted in Yahoo’s founding spirit, but is adapted to modern times.
In an iconic move, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang has recently returned.
“That was my mission in 1995,” Lanzon said. “That’s the mission now.”
To get there, Lanzone believes that leadership must be coordinated and inspired. “We need to bring in great people who share their passion for the project,” he said. “People who want Yahoo to be great again.”
Miga.
