Jim Lanzone
Jim Lanzone is the Chief Executive Officer of Yahoo Inc., a position he has held since September 2021 when the company was acquired by Apollo Global Management. He is a serial turnaround specialist who previously served as CEO of Tinder, President and CEO of CBS Interactive, and CEO of Ask Jeeves. At Yahoo, he is leading a multi-phase turnaround of the iconic internet brand, overseeing major product overhauls across Yahoo Finance, Yahoo Sports, and Yahoo Mail, and has launched the AI-powered Scout answer engine in partnership with Anthropic.
“Some of these people at ESPN, Shams, Woj in the early days, these are guys who started at Yahoo.”
Source→“Our fastest growth areas, including in Mail, are from Gen Z.”
Source→“ChatGPT was the latest. Before that, it was probably TikTok, you know, Snap, Instagram.”
Source→“Apollo structured the deal to return cash quickly, and the sale of AOL was part of the payback.”
“Lanzone has reported to venture investors, IAC, and CBS, and argues Apollo is no harder to work for.”
“He still speaks with Reed Rayman almost every day five years in.”
“For us, it went back to the thing that I think always falls into the cheesier side of this job, which is the mission. It really mattered here.”
Source→“We're not going to be an enterprise or B2B company. We are going to handle your personal life.”
Source→“We take all that data, and then we ground it. And then, we send it to a lightweight model. At launch, it was Haiku from Anthropic.”
Source→“Ask Jeeves, which is kind of the poster child for the web 1.0 crash.”
Source→“I actually didn't change one person on that team... almost 10% of all marriages in the United States were started on Tinder.”
Source→“Probably the biggest mentor I've ever had in this space... that turnaround was so respected that Steve was poached by Microsoft to run all internet for Microsoft. Satya reported to him.”
Source→“Dara left right when I joined... when Expedia spun out pretty much right as I joined.”
Source→“Bill Gurley was my... and Geoff Yang were my main two investors.”
Source→“Les Moonves. I mean, these are every body has to serve somebody.”
Source→“The original mission of the company that Jerry Yang and David Filo had in 1995, which is just being the trusted guide to the internet.”
Source→“Tim Armstrong, who's a great CEO and a good friend, had gone that way.”
Source→“John Foley, who founded Peloton, was one of the people at IAC... he called me a journeyman.”
Source→“I'm going to be interviewing Jim Lanzone of Yahoo I think in a week or so”
Source→“CEO Jim Lanzone signaled an IPO is coming: "The plan is not to stay private forever... I don't think it's too far off."”
Source→“Yahoo Sports' 'Ask Kevin O'Connor' feature 'lets people ask questions and receive AI-generated responses based on O'Connor's analysis and written voice,' pulling from 'his NBA Draft Guide, coverage and show along with player and team stats.'”
Source→AI-extracted from podcast / newsletter / paper summaries. May contain errors.