• Fast Company, Friday, January 6, 2012 1:28 PM

Despite his utter lack of media and “turnaround” experience, Fast Company has confidence in Scott Thompson to put Yahoo on the right track. Partly, however, its faith is based on the belief -- far-fetched, some would say -- that Yahoo is already headed in the right direction. According to Fast Company, Yahoo recently fixed major backend issues, which kept the company from seamlessly innovating across its entire network of sites.

“With the cleanup behind them, now when the company wants to institute something new, it can roll it out with the metaphorical flick of a switch.” Still, even if Yahoo isn’t desperate for a complete restructuring, one must be concerned with the new CEO’s lack of familiarity with media and entertainment. Or not. “Remember Terry Semel, the former head of Warner Brothers who brought with him a trunk-load of conventional notions of how media and entertainment should work--and then failed miserably when he tried to slap them onto the emerging digital world?” Fast Company asks.

“Yahoo doesn't need to do that again.” The bigger point, Fast Company writes, is that Yahoo doesn't need to bring in someone with a depth of experience in an industry that is undergoing radical change -- “someone who is so far inside the box they can't see how it doesn't work in the new world.”

Read the whole story at Fast Company »