Brad Says, Doug Says: Thoughts on Yahoo's Peanut Butter Manifesto

• By Isabel Wang on November 20, 2006

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Did you read Yahoo! Senior VP Brad Garlinghouse's "Peanut Butter Manifesto" over the weekend? Is it just me, or are there some parallels between Brad's Yahoo! and Doug Erwin's The Planet-EV1Servers?

Brad says: We lack a focused, cohesive vision for our company. We want to do everything and be everything to everyone.

Doug says: (in his recent interview with Liam) We play very strongly in the shared and virtualization and the low-end servers. We've built concepts around the managed and complex hosting businesses. In my terms our fair share (of our customers' hosting business) is 100 percent.

Brad says: We need to boldly and definitively declare what we are and what we are not. We need to place our bets and not second guess. If we believe Media will maximize our ROI, then let's not be bashful about reducing our investment in other areas.

Doug says: We are preparing our infrastructure for video... We have a sales organization focused on the colo business. And we have a separate organization focused on what I will call the masses. And we have another organization we're building that we call the "enterprise guys."

Brad says: At what point in the organization does someone really OWN the success of their product? Product, marketing, engineering, corporate strategy, financial operations... there are so many people in charge. This forces decisions to be pushed up, rather than down... We must thoughtfully create senior roles that have holistic accountability for a particular line of business.

Doug says: We've probably got 175 years of management. So it brings a sense of maturity, but it also brings a sense of creativity, because (our managers) all come from different walks of life... We have brought in a new sales leader. He comes from a long track record of success in building sales organizations that have dealt with the customer base that we're talking about: small and medium-sized businesses, as well as enterprise businesses.

Doug will complain that I am throwing stones, like always - but that is not my point. As a point of reference, EV1 was my company long before it was his. I know what it's got; I know what it could be.

Brad says: We have more users than ever, more engaging than ever and more profitable than ever! The magnitude of the opportunity is only matched by the magnitude of the assets.

And so it is for the world's largest dedicated server provider! Doug wants The Planet-EV1Servers to become a billion dollar, publicly traded company - and I think it could happen. By I'm not convinced that it's feasible to pursue every possible opportunity with the same team, under the same brand.

Doug's recent ad campaigns are perplexing, at best. First there's "Perfectly Sized", and now "Grow Some Wings". But who's the target audience for these messages? The ads never say. Which is just one example of the confusion that "peanut butter management" creates.

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