Nicholas Carlson's book "Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo" describes the past, present and future of the troubled Internet giant. What is striking is that Yahoo could influence the course of another tech giant - Google.
Yahoo had the opportunity to buy Google (then called BackRub) in 1997, at a bargain price, so Larry Page could continue his academic career. Yahoo of course didn't buy Google and let the opportunity pass. Imagine if Yahoo had bought Google back then. Page Rank would have been integrated into Yahoo Search and everything would have been different.
Imagine: Without Gmail, YouTube, Google Video, Google Reader, Picassa, Blogger, Orkut, Google Maps, Google Docs, Google Analytics, Google AdSense, Google Chrome, Google Web Master Tools, Google News, without Google.
We can't know if Yahoo Search would have been a better product, but given what we know, Yahoo could have probably become something like Google today. Or maybe not?
The company, in order to have the "audacity" (with or without quotes) to openly monitor us now, seems to have bought out the entire online community with the services it offers. The ones that everyone knows about, but also the upcoming ones that only Larry Page's Labs knows about.
We can't forget, of course, that many criticize Google for the way it dominates the search space and shuts out its competitors. There's always the lingering fear that the company could become Skynet, but there really isn't any other tech company that's as ambitious.
If Yahoo had acquired Google, we would probably see driverless cars from another company. The same would probably be true of robotics, or even extending the human lifespan? It's hard to think of any areas where Google hasn't excelled.
Microsoft has developed several interesting projects in its R&D labs , and Facebook is investing in the online world through Internet.org. All projects like these tend to be closely tied to the business goals of the companies in question.
In contrast, no company other than Google is as willing to invest in so many and multifaceted projects. Of course, few have the resources to do so, and despite all the justified criticism the company faces, there would be a huge hole in today's tech world without Google.
There's certainly a risk from a company that has amassed so much power and influence over the future of technology, but the tech scene would be a lot less interesting without Larry Page's legion of over-ambitious geeks.
With information from TNW
