Northwest Business
Some pretty fascinating stuff going on here in Seattle business lately
Microsoft vs. Yahoo
I've been intrigued by the whole Microsoft vs. Yahoo ordeal. Its pretty rare in a lifetime to witness deals this size being worked out, and with the internet we all get court side seats to watch it all happen.
First check out the letter that Microsoft's Steve Ballmer sent Yahoo's board. I was pretty shocked when I read this letter just how threatening the CEO actually gets. Its funny that in a letter this "official" his character and Microsoft's nature still shines through in such a transparent way. What's definitely clear is that the letter isn't meant for Yahoo's board at all but rather its shareholders ... and the way they get to this is pretty childish. Fits the company.
Then Yahoo responds. Publicly at that, again more meant for Yahoo's shareholders to witness ... but I love it. I especially love the last paragraph, paraphrased ... "Dear Steve, for a CEO, you seem to be pretty fucking dense. Let's try to communicate this again ... in dummy language so you might get it this time."
Whatever happens as this deal progresses, its pretty amazing to watch. I can't begin to understand how in the world Microsoft is going to even attempt at making this work being Yahoo's and MS' technologies are based on entirely different platforms. Unless they just leave Yahoo alone (as they've done in many other acquisitions) it'd mean replacing an entire workforce who haven't been trained in MS tech. Not to mention the MS tech is far inferior. Regardless, its fun to watch. I'd love to see Yahoo get out of it.
WaMu vs. Shareholders
Another interesting thing is what's going on with Washington Mutual bank right now. They held their shareholders meeting today and stakeholders came in pretty angry. Killinger went off to spout the usual corporate bullshit of blaming their horrible performance on outside conditions ... but no one bought it. People were actually jeering at the meeting and applause was breaking out for the rebukes. This is pretty amazing and awesome, I would have loved to have been there to witness it, I guess fortunately for me however, I don't own any WaMu stock.
I've had the opportunity to witness what goes on with a bank institution like this when mortgage conditions turn bad like they have within the last year, and it was pretty captivating to watch how leaders were able to shove off responsibility of poor leadership onto the peons. "With great power comes great responsibility" doesn't hold water with companies like these, it seems to be more "with great power comes power."
At the end of the day, WaMu screwed up, made poor leadership decisions and took the company in a wrong direction. The fact that the leaders can't admit this leaves the shareholders feeling like these leaders aren't the best people for the job ... which is pretty funny considering if they would just admit their faults and get on with their plans to not repeat it and make it better, I'm fairly sure they'd be much more well received by all involved. So the world turns I suppose.
What got me interested in this whole ordeal in the first place were statements the board made before the meeting to the press, explaining that they've been focusing on their checking & savings retail business to make things better and things have improved in that arena. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that's what they've been doing in the last year given all their recent advertising campaigns that are littering the airwaves.
What's funny about this is that it seems to be a standard solution. The same exact thing happened at a company I was previously involved with and it had disastrous results. If one major side of your business is failing, drawing attention off of it by focusing on another area thats less lucrative and making it better ... doesn't really make anything better. And there's plenty of recent examples in this industry to go around. Funny stuff.
Read more about the meeting in this Seattle PI article.
Howard Schultz vs. Clay Bennett
This one is going to be fun to watch as well. Howard Schultz has been doing some pretty cool stuff lately, including taking back his CEO position at Starbucks recently and making some pretty awesome changes. Its been really fun to watch him step up to the plate and explain how he's going to get Starbucks back where it should be.
Thanks to Otis for the tip on this one, today, he's once again making the news by suing Clay Bennett for taking the Sonics to Oklahoma.
The suit boils down to the fact that Bennett and other owners made a good faith promise to attempt to keep the team in Seattle the best they could. Obviously that's not what they did.
Lawyers are saying the case could be weak because it boils down to the definition of "good faith" and what it really means. Well, maybe I need to upgrade my BA to an MA before I can define what "good faith" is, but I can identify what it's not:
"We didn't buy the team to keep it in Seattle; we hoped to come here [Oklahoma City]."
Hahaha, that's great. Check out more about the story at BusinessWeek.
Monster Cable vs. Blue Jean Cable
And the final one that caught my attention, not terribly related to Seattle, but fascinating nonetheless. Monster Cable Inc. sent a cease-and-desist letter to Kurt Denke, CEO of Blue Jeans Cable Co. trying to get them to stop production of a certain type of cable based on patent infringements.
It just so happened that the president of this tiny company, who Monster Cable most likely assumed couldn't afford good legal counsel on the issue and could bully them around, used to be a lawyer ... and basically owned their ass in his response letter.
There are parts of the letter I feel could have been left out or more effective if worded differently, but as a whole, its a pretty awesome read. Check out the full letter and story here.