Comment by ryeights
7 months ago
The author called Sundar a McKinsey consultant, not Raghavan.
>A quick note: I used “management consultant” there as a pejorative. While he exhibits all the same bean-counting, morally-unguided behaviors of a management consultant, from what I can tell Raghavan has never actually worked in that particular sector of the economy.
It also seems like a stretch to say that Yahoo's former "Chief Strategy Officer" had no influence on Yahoo's management direction.
He called Raghavan a "management consultant", whilst acknowledging that he never was a management consultant. It's slinging pejorative nonsense labels.
Yeah. The author lost me when I reached the section labeled “Heroes and Villains.” As if I was reading a comic book.
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So why needlessly call him a management consultant?
Yes it is a stretch to say he had much influence. There reason is very simple. Yahoo! was in its death throes. The core products were not bringing in revenue, and it was in the middle of multiple hostile takeover attacks by various private equity players. First it was a hostile offer from Microsoft, a hostile take over effort by Carl Icahn, and then a finally yet another, hostile take over (I forget the name of the last raider)
When there is so much uncertainty, and the fight is for mere survival, strategy has no meaning. You don't strategize, when someone is shooting you in the head.
Is it that bad to have been a mgmt consultant? My goodness
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