The life cycle of tech companies is pretty straightforward. They start, they grow, they mature, and they consolidate.
The news that Yahoo is finally selling to Verizon and joining forces with AOL is a not in the least bit surprising and probably long overdue.
Yahoo has not been a growth business in quite a while.
Putting AOL and Yahoo together allows Verizon to cut costs and rationalize the two businesses and add scale to Verizon’s growing base of Internet assets.
But this is yesterday’s news in many ways. It is the denouement of the web 1.0 era when AOL and Yahoo were the Internet to many. They operated the training wheels that got so many of us online.
I am not saying these businesses do not matter anymore. Together they serve hundreds of millions of Internet users around the world, they produce a lot of revenue, and when structured properly, a lot of profit.
But these are not growth businesses, they are mature businesses. So it is time to extract profits, not revenue growth, and run them appropriately for what they are.
And that is what is happening with this merger that will be announced this morning.
In twenty years, the same thing will likely happen to thousands of businesses that are starting up this year.
That is the life cycle of tech businesses, shorter than many sectors, but a wild ride while it lasts. As was Yahoo.
