Dear Ross,
Perhaps more than anyone, BoomTown is thrilled to have you back in the Internet ops game, after several years on the sidelines.
Besides introducing an exciting new character and plotline into the daily digital drama set in Sunnyvale, Calif.–kind of like when one of Alexis Carrington’s ex-husbands returned after a bout with amnesia on “Dynasty”–it’s clear you are not going to be a shrinking violet.
Plus, you know how to handle drama after all those crazy years herding digital cats at News Corp.’s MySpace.
In other words: Nobody puts Ross in the corner!
But it’s a very big job you have, running both Yahoo’s massive media properties, as well as its giant sales organization–especially after all those years of long lunches as a venture investor.
Thus, I prepared a short list for you–kind of a Yahoo cheat sheet–to cut out and put in your cyber-wallet, and pull out if the need should arise:
10. If you have any internal emails, product roadmaps, acquisition plans and–especially–juicy memos, please immediately forward them to kara@allthingsd.com via the secret Gmail account every Yahoo staffer has. (Don’t worry, everyone does this! Really!)
9. If anyone offers you $31 a share for Yahoo, take it.
8. If someone asks you the question, “What is Yahoo?”: Run for the hills.
7. If anyone tries to drag you back to Sunnyvale from Los Angeles, resist, even after what happened to Lloyd Braun. There are no advertisers nor any significant digital media folks in Silicon Valley, however much anyone tells you there are.
6. If a billionaire shareholder activist named Carl whom you used to canoodle with about taking over Yahoo calls, please refer to No. 8.
5. If you can locate where Yahoo co-founder and former CEO Jerry Yang has gotten to of late–he has been sighted at Yahoo “strategery” meetings and playing golf with advertisers–please send his coordinates to kara@allthingsd.com. I am not a stalker. Well, only a little bit.
4. If you have to ask who Judy is, you have already lost, because Judy is actually in charge at Yahoo. (By the way, since you are both from Jersey, work that angle hard!)
3. If a smiley, cheekboned, Don Draper-looking dude calls from AOL wanting to do a “reverse merger” and offers a ride on Air Tim to discuss it, please refer to No. 8.
2. If you feel frustrated and have the need to utter naughty words and curses, stifle it! That’s a job for the CEO!
1. Ignore me.*
* At your peril.
