Why Did Yahoo Give Each Brand Its Own General Manager?

Jim Lanzone says Yahoo is a conglomerate, not a one-product company like Pinterest, Snap, Reddit, or Roku. Finance competes with Bloomberg, CNBC, and the Wall Street Journal. Sports competes with ESPN. Mail competes with Gmail. He had seen that shape before, at IAC with more than 60 brands and at CBS Interactive with more than 30, including CNET, SportsLine, Last.fm, and GameSpot.

At CBS he tried to have every brand report to him, because his background was product, and he slowed the company down. He hired general managers who could run, and his job became their plans, accountability, and help where he could. Verizon-era Yahoo had one head of product, one head of technology, and one head of content spread across the brands. The first change was a general manager for each group, with that group's own product, technology, and content leads, and sales, marketing, PR, and business development assigned from the center. Some of those people were already inside. Some were hired from outside. That team came together in 2022.