פרק 64: יאהו במהלך קריסת הדוט-קום, והאם היא תצליח להתאושש

Yahoo’s dominance in the late 1990s relied on an unsustainable feedback loop where venture-funded dot-com startups funneled capital into Yahoo’s advertising platform to inflate their own valuations. This dependency on short-term revenue to satisfy Wall Street expectations forced Yahoo to prioritize immediate gains over long-term technological innovation, leading to the missed opportunity of acquiring Google. Under CEO Terry Semel, the company pivoted to a traditional media model, treating the internet as a distribution network similar to television. While this strategy initially stabilized profits, it failed to account for the shift toward algorithmic search. As users migrated directly to Google, Yahoo’s directory-based approach became obsolete, illustrating the limitations of applying legacy media strategies to a rapidly evolving digital landscape where discovery and search quality define market leadership.