Bid’ness Is Bid’ness

5 May 2008 | 3:38 PM

I’ve been sitting on this hilarious FSJ post for months now, wondering just how the clusterfuck that is the Microsoft hostile takeover of Yahoo! was going to play itself out, and finally it has. Don’t get me wrong – I kind of wish the thing had gone through, just so we could all watch two of the technology industry’s biggest boat-anchors sink like a rock. Still, it’s been an instructive lesson about the nature of business. Mostly, it’s been fascinating to see Monkey Boy, easily one of the most reviled leaders in American business, outshined in the dickishness department by Yahoo!’s Jerry Yang. While shareholders currently eviscerate Yang for bungling this deal (most credible analysts believe that after a few months’ more floundering, Yahoo! will be back on Microsoft’s doorstep, begging to sell at a mere fraction of the price Microsoft was originally willing to pay), most of his employees back in California are snickering with the knowledge that a light is being shined upon just how inept and unscrupulous this guy is. Seriously, if Steve Ballmer can’t hold a candle to you as a perennial fuck-up and slave-driver, perhaps it’s time to hang up your slide rule and bull whip and call it a day.

Incidentally, Dear Leader has a pretty funny post on the deal’s demise that’s worth a read.

Posted by Andy in Nerdapalooza