????2007年6月，雅虎（Yahoo）還是一盤散沙，業(yè)務進展緩慢，士氣低下，許多核心高管離開公司另謀出路。不過雅虎董事會卻在年會上對股東信誓旦旦地保證，稱董事會強烈支持雅虎的首席執(zhí)行官特里?薩梅爾，結果才過了一個星期，薩梅爾就從首席執(zhí)行官的位子上離職了。（不過他在雅席非執(zhí)行董事長的位子上接著干了大約六個月。）

????快進到今年6月，雅虎的業(yè)務仍然十分混亂，它的管理層既沒能重現(xiàn)增長的勢頭，也沒有為公司業(yè)務設立一個清晰的愿景。不過雅虎董事長羅伊?伯斯托克卻對股東稱，公司的主席執(zhí)行官卡羅爾?巴茨的工作干得非常出色。結果現(xiàn)在巴茨也丟了飯碗。

????兩位CEO命運的相似之處也就僅止于此了。不同之處在于，薩梅爾雖然面臨了股東的壓力，但卻得以體面地辭職。而巴茨則是被毫不客氣地炒了魷魚。雅虎董事長伯斯托克通過電話里向巴茨宣布這個決定，巴茨的心情也自然不會好受。接到解雇決定后，巴茨迅速在她的iPad上寫了一封致雅虎全體員工的信，信中寫道：“非常難過地告訴大家，雅席董事會主席剛剛通過電話解雇了我。我很榮幸能與大家共事，祝你們未來一切順利。”

????巴茨的解雇標志著一向被外界視為膽小低效的雅虎董事會，這次終于做出了一次不同尋常的大膽之舉。雅虎董事會的表現(xiàn)在薩梅爾時代表現(xiàn)得乏善可陳，而薩梅爾主政的時代正是雅虎衰落的開始。后來雅虎共同創(chuàng)始人楊致遠接任CEO，在楊致遠的任期內，他拒絕了微軟（Microsoft）的收購方案，雅虎股東們都認為楊致遠的這個決定對于公司來說是個災難性的。楊致遠辭職后，巴茨接過CEO權杖，干了兩年半，而投資者對雅虎卻越來越感到沮喪。

????巴茨剛上任時放了“三把火”，砍掉了一些非核心業(yè)務，削減了成本，簡化了業(yè)務運作，并決定將部分互聯(lián)網(wǎng)搜索業(yè)務外包給微軟。但在如何帶領公司扭虧為贏的問題上，巴茨似乎就江郎才盡了。素有“鐵娘子”之稱的巴茨以語言辛辣大膽著稱，一開始被人們視作一股清新的空氣，但久而久之，股東們就失去了新鮮感。而且她與雅虎的一些亞洲業(yè)務伙伴也相處得不甚和睦，雙方的摩擦已經(jīng)不是一次兩次了。

????2009年1月巴茨剛剛接任雅虎CEO的時候，雅虎面臨著幾個重大的問題：首先在有利可圖的搜索廣告業(yè)務上，雅虎的市場份額不敵谷歌（Google），且此消彼長之勢日顯；另外雅虎本有機會收購一些增長十分迅速的網(wǎng)站，比如Facebook和YouTube等吸引了大量年輕用戶的網(wǎng)站，但最終卻坐失良機；雅虎的展示廣告業(yè)務是公司最得意的業(yè)務之一，不過在諸多廣告網(wǎng)站的包圍之下，再加上面臨經(jīng)濟危機的壓力，也呈現(xiàn)出江河日下之態(tài)；此外由于雅虎和微軟就收購問題談崩了，導致員工和股東士氣低下，公司上下一片怨氣。

????巴茨接任CEO至今已經(jīng)過了兩年半，但現(xiàn)在雅虎面臨的問題幾乎沒有改觀。雅虎的主要收入來自廣告，但雅虎在廣告市場所占的分額越來越低，而且短期內似乎尚看不到回升的勢頭。另外雅虎早已失去了一流創(chuàng)新公司的地位，它的股市表現(xiàn)也一蹶不振。

????那么雅虎目前的計劃是什么？看起來董事會也是在“摸著石頭過河”。雅虎董事會在沒有物色好CEO繼任人的情況下就炒掉了巴茨，然后任命原財務總監(jiān)蒂姆?莫斯為過渡CEO，同時在這段時間內加緊制訂公司下一步的發(fā)展戰(zhàn)略。董事會還任命了一支由五名高管組成的團隊，幫助莫斯“進行全面的戰(zhàn)略回顧?！?/p>

????正所謂“瘦死的駱駝比馬大”，雅虎現(xiàn)在仍是最有價值的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)媒體資產之一，每個月都有6億人使用它的網(wǎng)站或服務。它的市值超過了160億美元，而且就在巴茨被解雇的消息傳出后，雅虎股價在本周二的漲幅超過6%。此外雅虎公司還握有中國阿里巴巴集團（Alibaba Group）和雅虎日本（Yahoo Japan）的大量寶貴的股權，雅虎以前就曾考慮過銷售這些資產，因而預計不久將有一批投行家和顧問造訪雅虎的加州太陽谷總部，商討這些資產的銷售事宜。銷售這些有價值的資產自非難事，不過現(xiàn)在看來，起碼在雅虎公司內部，還沒有人知道如何才能讓這家曾經(jīng)的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)巨頭止住漫長而痛苦的衰退，重現(xiàn)往日輝煌。

????譯者：樸成奎

????Back in June 2007, Yahoo appeared to be rudderless. Its business was slowing, morale was low and many of its key executives were leaving. Yet its board told shareholders during their annual meeting that it strongly backed its chief executive, Terry Semel. A week later, Semel was out as C.E.O. (He remained non-executive chairman for about six months.)

????Fast-forward four years to this June, when Yahoo (YHOO) was still muddling through, and its management was unable to reignite growth or to articulate a clear vision for the business. Yet Roy Bostock, Yahoo's chairman, told shareholders that Carol Bartz, the C.E.O, was doing a stellar job. Now Bartz is out.

????The similarities between the two departures end there. Semel resigned, though he faced pressure from unhappy shareholders. Bartz was fired unceremoniously –- Bostock broke the news to her via phone. She did not sound pleased. In an email to Yahoo's entire staff, which she quickly tapped out on her iPad, she wrote: "I am very sad to tell you that I've just been fired over the phone by Yahoo's chairman of the board. It has been my pleasure to work with all of you and I wish you only the best going forward."

????Her firing represents an unusually bold action by a board that has been widely criticized as timid and ineffective. The same board stood idly by Semel, who presided over the beginning of Yahoo's decline. It stood idly by Semel's successor, co-founder Jerry Yang, who fought a lucrative takeover bid by Microsoft (MSFT), a decision that was seen as disastrous by shareholders. And after Yang resigned, it stood by Bartz for two-and-a-half years, even as investors grew more and more dispirited.

????Bartz shook things up early on, shedding non-core businesses, cutting costs, streamlining operations and deciding to outsource part of its Internet search operations to Microsoft. But she seemed to run out of ideas for how to turn the company around. Her famously blunt remarks and salty language were received as breath of fresh air initially, but ended up wearing thin on shareholders and even some of Yahoo's own business partners in Asia, with whom Bartz clashed repeatedly.

????When Bartz took over in January of 2009, Yahoo faced a handful of major problems. It was losing share of the lucrative search advertising business to Google (GOOG); it had missed opportunities to buy fast growing sites like Facebook and YouTube, which were attracting younger users; its display advertising business, one of its crown jewels, was under siege by ad networks and under pressure from the economic downturn; morale among employees was low and shareholders, still angry over the collapse of merger talks with Microsoft, were impatient.

????Two and a half years later, Yahoo faces pretty much the same problems. Its share of the advertising business, which accounts for the majority of Yahoo's revenue, has continued to slip and the trend is not expected to reverse any time soon. The company has long ceased to be seen as a top innovator and its stock has languished.

????So what's Yahoo's plan? It seems that the board is not so sure. It fired Bartz without a successor on hand, naming Tim Morse, the chief financial officer, as interim C.E.O. And when it comes to strategy, well, the board named a team of five senior executives to assist Morse in "a comprehensive strategic review."

????Yahoo, of course, remains one of the most valuable Internet media properties, with some 600 million people using its sites or services every month. It's market value was more than $16 billion, and that was before shares jumped more than six percent in after hours trading Tuesday, following news of Bartz's firing. Yahoo also has valuable stakes in China's Alibaba Group and in Yahoo Japan. So you can expect investment bankers and other advisors to visit the company's headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif., to talk about selling those assets, which Yahoo has considered before. That's likely to be the easy part. But no one -- certainly no one at Yahoo -- seems to have figured how to stop the long, agonizing decline of an erstwhile Internet giant.