Three years ago, when he stepped aside as chief executive of
the internet group with which his name is intimately connected, Jerry Yang had
a message for the Yahoo faithful: “I will always bleed purple.”
Mr Yang could hardly have come up with a more graphic way to express his love for the company he founded, along with fellow graduate student David Filo, on an idea for an index of websites that the two cooked up together in 1994.
Despite giving up the top job, however, Mr Yang remained on Yahoo’s board and had a powerful behind-the-scenes influence. Carol Bartz, who was forced out as chief executive last September, came to believe that Mr Yang was undermining some of her own efforts to turn round the company, according to people who know her. And when it came time to consider new strategic options after she had left, Mr Yang was the one who was sent out to talk to private equity firms about taking a stake in the company, though people close to the Yahoo board have insisted that he only did so under strict supervision from his fellow directors.
Whether you consider this meddling by a founder who cannot bear to hand over the reins or constructive intervention by a director who knows Yahoo better than anyone depends a lot on where you sit.
If it happens to be in Silicon Valley, where founder mystique is a powerful force, then you are likely to feel that not only did Mr Yang have a right to interfere, he probably had a better sense of what was needed at Yahoo than most of the others on the board. That could make his resignation from the board this week a turning point in the company’s history.
Silicon Valley venture capitalists like Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital, an early backer of Messrs Yang and Filo, as well as Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page argue that it is hard to overstate the value to a tech company of a founder.
It is partly a matter of vision. However much a company grows, according to this view, there is still an original idea and core set of values on which it was founded. At times of stress, tapping back into these is often a route to salvation.
But it also comes down to passion. No professional manager can ever match the sense of purpose felt by a founder. Supporters of this view will note that Mr Yang was still fighting for the company he created long after professional managers (and former chief executives) Terry Semel and Ms Bartz had departed.
When does this passion become too much of a good thing? That is a question that has come to assume outsized importance, given how the latest crop of internet entrepreneurs has taken to formally enshrining their founder control.
Google started the trend, coming up with a dual-class voting structure ahead of its 2004 stock market listing that will keep control firmly in the hands of Messrs Brin and Page. The search company’s highly profitable business and unconventional approach to life made it hard for outside investors to resist the idea. But what began as Google exceptionalism has now come to be seen by many entrepreneurs as a birthright. The likes of LinkedIn, Zynga and Groupon came up with lopsided voting arrangements ahead of their 2011 initial public offerings to give their founders protection against outside influence, whatever happens.
For now, as they race to cash in on business ideas that are producing growth rates that would once have seemed unimaginable, this hardly seems a pressing issue. Yet internet fortunes can turn remarkably quickly. Also, founders such as Andrew Mason at Groupon and Mark Pincus at Zynga have already attracted controversy – Mr Mason for his bullish touting of his company’s IPO and Mr Pincus for a tough management style. Should their boards ever decide that these founders have not grown into the well-rounded chief executives they had hoped for, what could they do to re-exert control?
The tech industry’s prevailing belief in founder control is
also set to be tested by a handful of prominent cases where founders have
retaken control of their companies in moments of crisis, or at least, of
growing competitive pressure.
Mr Yang was a case in point, having stepped up to try to revive Yahoo after it lost the search wars to Google. Michael Dell’s return to the company that bears his name has also been slow to produce results. The latest to step forward was Larry Page at Google, who took the reins from Eric Schmidt last year, a situation that partly echoes that of Mr Yang, who had taken a back seat to more experienced managers before being deemed to have “grown up” enough to take the top job.
With Steve Jobs’ death, the generation of founders that came of age with the rise of the PC industry has largely passed. It is time for a new crop to prove that the fate of their businesses is best left firmly in their own hands. If they stumble, it would deal a long-lasting blow to the idea that Silicon Valley’s founder-led approach is still the best way to build world-beating companies.
Richard Waters is the FT’s West Coast
editor
Richard Waters: 楊致遠之後的雅虎
三年前，當他從與他名字緊緊相連的網絡集團的首席執行官職位上退位時，楊致遠(Jerry Yang)向雅虎(Yahoo)的忠誠者發信說：“我的血將永遠是紫色的（雅虎企業標志色——譯者注）。”
對於這家他所創立的公司，再也沒有比這更能形象地表達楊致遠的熱愛的了。他與校友大衛•費羅(David Filo)在1994年產生了創建一個網頁索引的想法，並據此創立了雅虎。
不過，盡管放棄了最高職務，楊致遠那時仍然擔任雅虎董事，並發揮著巨大的幕后影響力。據知情人士稱，去年9月被迫離開的前首席執行官卡羅爾•巴茨(Carol
Bartz)，後來相信楊致遠破壞了她試圖扭轉雅虎局面的一些努力。在她離開後，在考慮新戰略選擇時，是楊致遠被派去與私人股本公司就入股一事舉行談判，盡管與雅虎董事會關系密切的人堅稱，楊致遠隻是在其他董事的嚴格監督下這麼做。
至於你是把這件事看作一個不甘交棒的創始人的瞎摻乎，還是一個比所有人更了解雅虎的董事的建設性介入，那在很大程度上就取決於你在什麼地方闖蕩了。
如果是在創始人神秘感具有強大魔力的硅谷，那麼你很可能會覺得，楊致遠不但有權利干預，他很可能比其他多數董事更明白雅虎需要什麼。那樣的話，他本周從董事會辭職，對雅虎而言可能是一個歷史轉折點。
紅杉資本(Sequoia
Capital)的邁克爾•莫裡茨(Michael Moritz)這樣的硅谷風險資本家，以及谷歌(Google)創始人塞吉•布林(Sergey Brin)和拉裡•佩奇(Larry
Page)認為，無論怎麼評價創始人對一家科技公司的價值都不過分。莫裡茨是楊致遠和費羅創業初期的後台。
這一部分是願景問題。根據這種觀點，不論一家公司如何成長，總有其最初的理念和核心價值體系，它們是公司的基石。在遇到困難的時候，追本溯源往往能夠起死回生。
但這也是一個激情的問題。職業經理人永遠無法效仿創始人所具有的使命感。支持這一觀點的人會指出，在職業經理人（前首席執行官）特裡•塞梅爾(Terry Semel)和巴茨離開之後很久，楊致遠仍在為自己創立的公司打拼。
這種激情在什麼情況下會適得其反呢？鑒於最新一批互聯網創業者已紛紛將創始人控制權正式確立下來，這個問題已變得格外重要。
這種趨勢的領頭者是谷歌，在2004年股票上市前夕，它提出了一種二級投票結構，將控制權牢牢掌握在布林和佩奇手中。這家搜索公司的高盈利業務和非常規經營方式，使外部投資者難以反對這種構想。然而，最初僅屬於谷歌的例外做法，現在被許多創業者視為與生俱來的權利。LinkedIn、Zynga和Groupon等公司在2011年首次公開發行(IPO)前夕，也提出了傾斜式投票安排，保護創始人在任何情況下都不受外部影響的排擠。
就目前而言，在這些創始人競相變現自己的商業構想之際（這些構想正帶來曾被視為不可想象的增長率），這似乎不是一個緊迫的問題。但互聯網行業瞬息萬變。並且，Groupon的安德魯•梅森(Andrew
Mason)和Zynga的馬克•平卡斯(Mark
Pincus)等創始人，已經引起了爭議——梅森是因為大肆吹噓Groupon的IPO，平卡斯是因為鐵腕的管理風格。如果他們的董事會發現，這些創始人沒有成長為董事會所期盼的成熟的首席執行官，董事會又能做些什麼來重掌控制權呢？
科技行業對創始人控制權的普遍信仰，也正受到少數知名案例的考驗。在此類案例中，創始人在危機時刻（或者至少是競爭壓力日益增大的時刻），重新獲得了公司的控制權。
楊致遠就是一個很好的例子，雅虎在搜索之戰中敗給谷歌之後，他曾挺身而出，試圖復活雅虎。邁克爾•戴爾(Michael Dell)重返以他名字命名的公司，也遲遲沒有顯出成效。最近走向前台的人物是谷歌的拉裡•佩奇，他去年從埃裡克•施密特(Eric
Schmidt)手中接過權力，這有點像楊致遠的翻版。楊致遠在被認為“成熟”到能夠擔任最高職務之前，曾退居後座，讓更有經驗的經理人當家。
隨著史蒂夫•喬布斯(Steve
Jobs)的去世，與個人電腦行業同時代興起的一代創始人已經基本成為過去式。現在新一代創始人需要証明：他們的企業牢牢掌握在自己手中才是最好的。如果他們失敗，就會對這樣一個構想產生長久的打擊：硅谷以創始人為主導的模式，仍是建立世界級公司的最佳道路。
Richard Waters是英國《金融時報》西海岸執行主編