Yahoo! doesn't know what it wants to be when it grows up

Or even what it should be today. Michael Arrington's article in TechCrunch sums it up well:

[Yahoo's CEO Jerry] Yang was not prepared for perhaps the one question that every CEO should be ready to answer at all times: "What is the business of Yahoo?" He was all over the place. He said their core focus included "home page, mail, search, and mobile." He also said "We can't be all things to all people. We have become much more focused," before taking about other areas of focus at Yahoo, including advertising, social networking and their new open strategy.

[President Sue] Decker stepped in and tried to distill their core message, repeating "we focus on homepage, search, mail and mobile" but then went on to talk extensively about advertising, including a new display advertising product that the company will launch in Q3 this year.

And another thing. Jerry claims that he "bleeds purple", but I challenge you to show me where on the web Yahoo! is actually branded purple. It turns out only on the investor relations site and sort of on the corporate blog, and those aren't even a part of the yahoo.com domain!

It's sad but true. There are a lot of smart, passionate people at Yahoo!, but there is definitely a dearth of focus and leadership at the higher levels. And as Yoda would say, "that is why you fail."