“Folks here were never that psyched about the idea of Microsoft buying one of the hometown heroes and I think they’re happy to see that the deal is off the table right now.” That’s me, talking on public radio station KQED this morning about Silicon Valley’s reaction to the now-suspended Microsoft-Yahoo merger. I talked for about five minutes about how people’s emotional reactions to Microsoft colored what otherwise would have been a smart financial decision (Sell my Yahoo stock at $34? Hell yes!) and turned it into a visceral one (Microsoft is the enemy).
Why’s that? “Yahoo is probably the greatest success story to come out of the dot com boom. It really embodies a lot of the optimism and the work culture that grew up during the dot com boom… it has this iconoclastic, consumer-friendly and low-key attitude. And I think people really regard it as an example of the best that Silicon Valley produced during that time.”
I’m not at my most eloquent in this segment, but it gets across my main points.
KQED Radio News: Taking Yahoo’s Pulse
Download the segment: MP3 file
I never really understood the “Microsoft is the Enemy” approach that many people have. If it wasn’t for Bill and Microsoft, the personal computer revolution would not have happened, or at least certainly not nearly as quickly. I think we have a lot to thank Bill for, and remember, he’s the worlds most generous philanthropist.