Earlier today, Yahoo announced that it will be selling what remains of its former Internet empire to Verizon for a little under $5 billion -- quite a fall for a company that Wall Street once valued at $125 billion.
Yahoo now joins AOL in Verizon's menagerie of early Internet behemoths. According to Forbes' Brian Solomon, the company hopes to leverage the platforms' mobile content and advertising technology to better reach its 140 million customers -- that is, by focusing on the very market both companies ignored for far too long.
If Yahoo's CEO, Marissa Mayer, exits the company, she will receive approximately $57 million in severance pay—this despite the fact that many industry insiders believe she hastened the company's demise through micromanagement and a propensity to make important decisions both too quickly and using the wrong criteria. Curiously, however, Mayer doesn't seem to have her bags packed, as she wrote in a memo published on Tumblr: "I’m planning to stay. I love Yahoo, and I believe in all of you. It’s important to me to see Yahoo into its next chapter."
Verizon's chairman and CEO, Lowell McAdam, said on Monday that "just over a year ago we acquired AOL to enhance our strategy of providing a cross-screen connection for consumers, creators and advertisers. The acquisition of Yahoo will put Verizon in a highly competitive position as a top global mobile media company, and help accelerate our revenue stream in digital advertising."
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