I met Carol Bartz in a very nice sit down lunch discussion organized by Yahoo India in Nov 2009
Yeah – like a moron, I used to wear proper shirts and jackets at that time.
Anyway, this is why my first and last meeting with Carol Bartz was ‘shattering’ :
– The FIRST and I mean FIRST thing Carol Bartz spoke about when she started her speech was about ‘Yahoo E-Mail’ and the NUMBER OF MAILS that Y! sends out everyday!
She labored about the fact that there were zillions of servers that Y! employed and how amazing the entire concept was!!
REALLY?
I was stunned! Was this someone who had never heard of the cloud and what new Internet architecture was becoming?? I mean what was the big deal about lots of servers and lots of mails??
It was stunning to have heard her berating us with the Y! mail piece as if it were a new technology to land a spaceship on the sun.
– I asked her ‘why Yahoo has NOT GONE SOCIAL’ ?
I pointed out that Y! was a massive massive community of real people ‘hanging’ out on Y! everyday and it was like a MASSIVE fully loaded Football Field WITH THE LIGHTS OFF.
All that was needed was to TURN the lights ON – via a ‘social connect’ button/bar/anything!
What Carol Bartz responded back was by saying that PHOTOS was the BIG THING that consumers were sharing and they had flickr that was a great service.
I STILL REMEMBER asking her ‘ Carol – WHY NOT GAMES’ ? ( yeah, it was of course a selfish pitch) and I did labor that a majority of Y! users are American Women who happen to be the sweet spot for Zynga Games and hence it was a perfect way to get social and sticky….
Carol smiled.
– I complimented her about her new India centric Television, Print and TV campaign.
Carol’s face lit up and she was very happy that I could actually spell out the base line of the campaign.
Well, I was flattering her for some brownie points but it occurred to me that this was the CEO of one of the largest Internet Company’s of the world getting excited about traditional media ads – something most Internet firms think of as very avoidable and unproductive.
– Someone asked her about Facebook.
The response was SHOCKING. She said – ‘yeah, I know… That’s what they always ask me in San Francisco, New York, London etc. That’s because the people in these cities think that Facebook is the begginning and end of the world. Well, I tell them – GO TO MIDDLE AMERICA – Ask the Housewife there what she thinks of Y! and then you will know’.
That made NO SENSE AT ALL. The Internet was and is a global phenomena. Not local honey that sells in small country farms!!
(ps – those same women now throng facebook and connect with all their friends and relatives and like how)
I came back feeling puzzled. She seemed old, out of context and very confused about what Y! was GREAT ABOUT.
NOTE – Lots of the points above may not be the ad verbatim discussion in that meeting – BUT it captures the essense of my meeting with her. Apologies if there is an exaggeration.
Also, a few people including some comments in this post ask ‘Alok – why say this now? When you felt so strongly that time, why didn’t you say so? Well:
– I WAS CHICKEN – I didn’t have the courage to think of challenging a 60 year old veteran who had made a big reputation for herself.
– Facebook was still a ‘concept’
– I was possibly pandering to Y! for business/deals etc. In that pursuit, I even wrote a positive post on this meeting (keeping the bad stuff out coz i wasn’t even sure if it was bad and just writing on the person and the good stuff). Now, I deleted that post today but after an amazing whack on the head by fellow rodinhooder Gajendrasingh Verma who commented below, I decided to re-instate that post, available here. This was one of the most educative moments for me! But, I live and learn!
– I had just read a story about Carol Bartz around the time of this meeting: She had breast cancer and was recovering from Chemotherapy. On her way to work, she had chosen spots along the drive (I think from Sausilito to San Fran city) where she would get out and Vomit. She had pre-defined her vomit spots. I was awestruck by someone of this courage and strength.
In any case – I LOVE YAHOO. ALWAYS DID – ALWAYS WILL.
I also deeply respect Jerry Yang and David Filo and they will remain my super heroes forever.
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