Bartz Departs: Time to Reset Alibaba, Yahoo Relationship 雅虎解雇CEO或是阿里巴巴与之冰释前嫌的良机

By newsdoug on September 8, 2011

Alibaba and Yahoo: time to mend fences The sudden firing of Carol Bartz, the hard-nosed CEO of search giant Yahoo (Nasdaq: YHOO), is all the talk of the tech world today, and I have no doubt the folks at Alibaba Group, who took every opportunity to bad-mouth this woman, are quietly celebrating the news. (English article) But if he’s smart, Alibaba chief Jack Ma should do more than just celebrate Bartz’s departure, and reach out to the Yahoo board to try and mend fences and even play a role in helping to choose a new CEO that can work constructively with China’s leading e-commerce company, which is 40 percent owned by Yahoo. Ma never tried to hide his animosity towards Bartz, a woman he considered brash and lacking vision, when she replaced his good friend Jerry Yang at the helm of Yahoo several years back in a bid to rescue a company that was rapidly losing ground to more nimble rival Google (Nasdaq: GOOG). Ma, through well-placed leaks to the media, made it known repeatedly over the last 2 years that he wished Yahoo would sell its stake in Alibaba, and did everything he could to line up potential buyers. But Bartz never took the bait, realizing the Alibaba stake was worth up to $10 billion, thus accounting for a large piece of Yahoo’s market cap, which now stands at $17 billion. Of course, now all the enmity is history, and Ma should take advantage of the moment to see if he can lay the foundations for a more constructive relationship by reaching out to Yahoo’s board rather than waiting for the board or eventual new CEO to come to him. Six months ago I would have said that Ma, who rightly sees himself as one of China’s earliest e-commerce visionaries, was too proud to make such a move. But after a bruising scandal earlier this year that saw him harshly criticized for his secret spin-off of Alibaba’s e-payments unit, AliPay (previous post), he appears to have become a humbler person and may even believe he’s human again! Given all the recent developments, I’d say there’s a very good chance these two partners with such a stormy past might finally be able to sit down together and forge a good new relationship that benefits everyone.

Bottom line: Alibaba’s Jack Ma has a golden opportunity to reset his relationship with Yahoo following the firing of its brash CEO, and is likely to reach out to the US company to mend fences.

雅虎(YHOO.O)突然解雇首席执行官巴茨（Carol Bartz），是今天业内的热议话题，我相信，不放过任何攻击巴茨机会的阿里巴巴集团正在暗中庆祝。但如果马云聪明的话，就不只该庆祝巴茨下课，而应采取更多行动，与雅虎董事会接触，力争改善双方关系，甚至积极帮助雅虎挑选一名能与阿里巴巴建设性合作的新掌门。雅虎持有阿里巴巴40%的股份。马云从不掩饰他对巴茨的厌恶之情。马云认为，巴茨傲慢无礼且缺乏远见。几年前，谷歌(GOOG.O)迅速抢占雅虎市场份额，马云好友杨致远当时试图力挽狂澜，而之後巴茨取代杨致远成为雅虎CEO。近两年，马云巧妙地通过媒体，多次表达希望雅虎出售阿里巴巴股份的意愿，并竭尽所能寻找潜在买家。但巴茨从未让马云如愿，因为雅虎所持有的阿里巴巴股份价值已高达100亿美元，在雅虎170亿美元市值中占很大比例。当然，这些都是过去的事了，马云应利用这次机会，与雅虎董事会进行接触，力争为一个更具建设性的合作夥伴关系奠基，而不是坐等雅虎董事会任命新的CEO。如果在六个月前，我会认为，马云自尊心太强，不屑于采取如此举措。但今年早些时候，马云秘密转让支付宝股权遭抨击後，似乎变得更谦逊，甚至令人相信他又有人情味了！鉴于上述最新进展，我敢说，雅虎和阿里巴巴有望冰释前嫌，可能终于会坐下谈判，建设新的双赢合作关系。

一句话：雅虎解雇CEO巴茨，是阿里巴巴董事长马云与雅虎关系重启的绝佳机会，马云很可能会与雅虎接触，改善双方合作关系。