RiskReversal Pod Jim Lanzone - Everything in its Right Place for a Yahoo! Turnaround
Dec 11, 2025
Jim Lanzone, the dynamic CEO of Yahoo and former head of Tinder and CBS Interactive, shares insights into Yahoo's remarkable turnaround. He discusses the pivotal moment of Yahoo's 'original sin' that contributed to Google's rise and explores the parallels between the Dot-Com crash and today’s AI surge. Lanzone highlights Yahoo's impressive user reach and advertising strategies while detailing the company's decentralized product teams and upcoming innovations in fantasy sports and AI integrations. His vision for revitalizing Yahoo emphasizes trust in media and historical learnings for future growth.
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Private Equity Saw Turnaround Potential
- Apollo bought Yahoo because it had massive traffic, recognizable brands, and under-optimized products that could be turned around.
- Jim Lanzone saw the same turnaround pattern in Ask Jeeves and CBS properties and ran toward the opportunity.
AI Search Is A Step-Change From Past 'Answer Boxes'
- Early natural-language search was fragile and required precise queries and structured knowledge bases.
- Modern large language models create a step-change by producing richer, on-the-fly answers at scale.
Decentralize Ownership To Unlock Product Speed
- Break large legacy organizations into product-aligned general-managed businesses with P&Ls and engineering teams.
- Central functions should enable those units rather than micromanage product execution.