I worked at Yahoo 2003-2005, and back then I used to tell everyone who would listen that a big part of the problem was that the engineering team at Yahoo believed that Yahoo was a technology company, while the product team treated it as a media company.
It was an ongoing tension while Yahoo was still desperately clinging to the fantasy of regaining the search leadership, or at least stopping Google in its tracks - search was to a large extent Yahoo engineering's claim to legitimacy for the idea of a tech focused Yahoo.
Without it, what was left were mainly support functions for a massive content operation, but with a team still to a large extent seeing itself as the core of the company.
Yahoo wasted tremendous amounts trying to do technology for the sake of being a tech company rather than to support revenues; a lot of little fiefdoms in engineering were allowed to exist seemingly because it looked internally like Yahoo was building an impressive technology base, while it often instead was creating tensions in the business and costing ridiculous amounts.
It was an ongoing tension while Yahoo was still desperately clinging to the fantasy of regaining the search leadership, or at least stopping Google in its tracks - search was to a large extent Yahoo engineering's claim to legitimacy for the idea of a tech focused Yahoo.
Without it, what was left were mainly support functions for a massive content operation, but with a team still to a large extent seeing itself as the core of the company.
Yahoo wasted tremendous amounts trying to do technology for the sake of being a tech company rather than to support revenues; a lot of little fiefdoms in engineering were allowed to exist seemingly because it looked internally like Yahoo was building an impressive technology base, while it often instead was creating tensions in the business and costing ridiculous amounts.