Yang, Yahoo & Chinese business custom
Jerry Yang and Yahoo have been in the tech news a lot lately due having his “Texas Hold ‘Em” style bluff called by Miscrosoft’s Steve Ballmer. Sure it’s easy to second guess Jerry, and understand why shareholders would be really pissed at him in this world of , “Hey you made me lots of money 7 minutes ago but what have you done for me lately?” thinking and ethics. Yang’s biggest sin is being faithful to his cultural DNA. He is of Chinese descent. The Chinese are almost exclusively family businesses and are run like a family not like a company. Hence, there is a ton of emotion and passion tied-up in them. It’s very hard to distance one’s self from one’s company under the Chinese model way since they are so intertwined.
I am a small business owner myself and can empathize with Yang completely on this point. Sadly, I don’t have the comfort factor of hundreds of millions of dollars at my disposal to walk away gracefully and do something else. That’s the point though-Jerry is probably more focused on the intertwined identity of Yahoo/yang more than the financials. He has a lot to be proud of and his bruised ego will heal. Yahoo once a disruptor and trend setter has become a poorly managed behemoth. Time once again for Wall Street to devour what it has created.
