Yahoo's Lanzone rebuilt every product and poached 'run to the fire' talent (interview)

Jim Lanzone took the Yahoo job in 2021 as his third turnaround of a top-10 internet company, after Ask Jeeves, CBS Interactive and Tinder. He called it the 'white whale of turnarounds': a brand with deep roots and loyal users but a product engine needing a serious overhaul, to be run in phases — 'fixing to rebuilding to innovating' — starting with rebuilding the team and company from the ground up.

The philosophy is product-first. 'In the past nine months, every pixel on Yahoo is new,' he told Fortune — every product the company operates is brand new, while category leaders like Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Fantasy were retained and refreshed. Data sets the order of operations: who uses it, how often, what they love, what they hate. And the mission never actually changed: 'We were the trusted guide to the internet… That was the mission in 1995. It's the mission now.' Co-founder Jerry Yang recently returned to say as much at a company-wide All Hands.

The talent lift made the rebuild credible: chief marketing officer Josh Line arrived from Paramount Global, chief revenue officer Rob Wilk from Snap. 'It surprised people how many great people wanted to run towards the fire here at Yahoo,' Lanzone says. For Apollo Global Management, which bought Yahoo from Verizon for under $5 billion in 2021 — a 96% cut from its $125 billion peak valuation — Yahoo has become one of its fastest-returning deals, he says, with the playbook being growth rather than extracting value from the parts.

The surprise audience: 'People are surprised that we're top 5 with Gen Z. Half of our audience is Gen Z and millennials' — self-reported figures from the interview. The founding motto, 'Always Under Construction,' has been revived as the operating culture: always evolving, but 'on behalf of our users — not for some corporate reason.'

Every Yahoo product rebuilt within nine months; one of Apollo's fastest-returning deals; top-5 with Gen Z, half the audience Gen Z or millennial (self-reported).

Product quality was made the precondition of brand affection — 'you can't do that until you actually fix the products first'

High-profile hires from Paramount and Snap signaled the rebuild was real, drawing more talent 'towards the fire'

The turnaround leaned on what never left: category-leading Finance and Fantasy properties and the 1995 mission of guiding users

Data discipline — who uses it, how often, what they love or hate — set the sequence from fixing to rebuilding to innovating

For a beloved but battered brand, affection follows function: fix the products first, then the story — talent follows the credibility of a rebuilt team.

Lanzone says Yahoo is among Apollo's fastest-returning deals and the goal is to 'build one Yahoo into a sustainable, great company for the next 30 years.' The Gen Z traction and the nine-month full-product rebuild are self-reported in the interview; no third-party numbers are given.