It's a little unfair to compare Google to Yahoo. Google makes money like an old-fashioned media company: It's core mission is to provide an outlet for content--in this case, the
Web's content. So it focuses most of its resources on making that content easier to find. It isn't necessarily Semel's fault that Yahoo was originally a creator and aggregator of content that came
late, very late, to the search party.
But it isn't just search: what do Google Earth, Gmail, Google Reader, Google Docs & Spreadsheets, etc. have in common? They're Web and
communication services, tools that became content. When you consider that they're also products that sell themselves (Yahoo spends hundreds of millions on marketing to Google's zero), you begin to
understand why Semel is out of a job today.
Yang now is faced with the tall task of saving the company he founded.