Hold Off on Yahoo! Stock, But Give New CEO Benefit of the Doubt
We have to give Mayer and Yahoo!'s Board the benefit of the doubt. For all we know, she might have been the brains behind Google for the last 13 years. I certainly would not put the company's other leaders on par with the likes of Steve Jobs or Jeff Bezos.
In a few articles I came across, Mayer expanded on what she'll do at Yahoo! In summary, she plans to leverage the strong but woefully under-utilized franchises at Yahoo! -- namely Finance and Sports. That's what she needs to do, build on these excellent brands. If she follows through like Levinsohn appeared to be doing during his short stint as interim CEO, I will quickly become a bull.
I have to believe Mayer shares Levinsohn's vision. If not, the Yahoo! board and executive office is in greater disarray than previously thought. Why would the company sign major partnerships with significant media-related brands such as CNBC and Spotify only to go in an entirely different direction?
Of course, because Mayer is female she will draw even more attention and, quite possibly, face a different type of scrutiny.
If she does not thing else as CEO of Yahoo!, I hope she can accomplish two things. Both relate to the pathetic carnage former bombastic Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz left behind.
Mayer sets out on the road to winning if she can restore employee morale at Yahoo! and return the class and professionalism not only Bartz, but it seems Scott Thompson, sucked out of the company's CEO office over the last several years.
At the time of publication, the author held no positions in any of the stocks mentioned in this article.
This article is commentary by an independent contributor, separate from TheStreet's regular news coverage.