Scary Page (Founder, Google) :
Google: Hello, I am Scary Page; an American computer scientist. But the world more popularly knows me as the Founder of Google. We've been associated with Yahoo since our early days. Let's speak about it in detail during today's discussion.

Jerry Bang (Founder, Yahoo) :
Founder: Hello, Jerry Bang here. I may have a funny name, but that hasn't deterred me from co-founding Yahoo and making it big - $100 billion at its peak. David Filo was my partner and supporter throughout this journey. by the way, Yahoo stands for 'Yet Another Hierarchically Organized Oracle.'

Crowell McAdam (CEO, Verizon) :
Verizon: Hi, good day to everyone. I'm Crowell McAdam, the CEO of Verizon. For those who don't know us, Verizon is a digital communications conglomerate - we do everything from mobile phones, TVs, networks, cellular service, etc.

Marissa Slayer (CEO, Yahoo) :
CEO: Google, Yahoo, Verizon - we have a lot of tech space players conversing today. I think this is going to be fun.

Scary Page (Founder, Google) :
Google: True, Marissa. But, it would have been fun had all 3 companies been in business. Unfortunately, Yahoo is out of it for almost one and a half decade now. Don't worry, you can apply to Google now. I'll be happy to reject your application.

Marissa Slayer (CEO, Yahoo) :
CEO: Just the conscending tone that Yahoo used while rejecting your application in 1998? I'm sure you cried yourself to sleep in your mama's home that night. Didn't you Larry?

Jerry Bang (Founder, Yahoo) :
Founder: Marissa and Larry...Could we please tone down this American sarcasm and be a little professional for a while? Yes, Yahoo isn't doing as well as it did earlier. Yes, we made mistakes. But it was a great achievement to have survived through everything.

Crowell McAdam (CEO, Verizon) :
Verizon: Yes Jerry, the world will always know Yahoo as the pioneer for internet services. You guys started pretty early - 1994, right?

Jerry Bang (Founder, Yahoo) :
Founder: Thank You, Crowell. Yes, we did start in 1994. Things happened very fast. People wanted to explore the internet but didn't have the means to do it. We gave it to them, and before we knew it, we went public within one year of being incorporated.

Scary Page (Founder, Google) :
Google: Oh, absolutely Jerry. As a teenager, I used a lot of Yahoo myself (only if it was to figure out how to make it better). But still - Yahoo was the second ranked website in terms of internet traffic.

Marissa Slayer (CEO, Yahoo) :
CEO: Of course, the internet was all the rage back then. It still is, but the amount of money Wall Street threw at any company which had a '.com' at its end in the 1990s was crazy! Even Scary Page and Sergei wanted a piece of the pie. It was 1998 when they approached Jerry, asking for $1 million in exchange of a page ranking algorithm.

Jerry Bang (Founder, Yahoo) :
Founder: True, Marissa. It was stupid of us to reject their idea. We, unknowingly, gave the birth to Google. It still hurts, but fortunately, we made other good investments.

Scary Page (Founder, Google) :
Google: I don't think good and Yahoo can ever come in the same sentence.

Jerry Bang (Founder, Yahoo) :
Founder: Scary, we purchased a 30% stake in Alibaba.com. Jack Ma, the founder, is still a dear friend and more importantly, even when Yahoo as a service provider isn't able to do well, our holding in Alibaba is helping us out with cashflows. Yahoo mail was also purchased from 411 for $96 million. It became the 3rd larget e-mail based service.

Crowell McAdam (CEO, Verizon) :
Verizon: Well, Jerry and Larry, those early days were quite good - no doubt. But the 2002 market crash must have been pretty emotionally taxing on you guys. Hundreds of companies shut doors, but Google, Amazon, Yahoo survived.

Scary Page (Founder, Google) :
Google: True, Crowell. It was pretty bad, no doubt. The Yahoo share fell from $118 to $4.6. They lost 96% of their market cap. Google's share lost a lot, too. Amazon also fired most of its staff.

Jerry Bang (Founder, Yahoo) :
Founder: Yes Scary, there are factors beyond one's control. In 2002, we were the most visited website in the world. In 2005, on our 10-year anniversary, we distributed free Baskin Robbin coupons to our customers. Then we acquired Flickr and had even made an offer to Mark to buy his company.

Scary Page (Founder, Google) :
Google: You had no option but to buy Flickr or a similar image search engine. Your in-house algorithms couldn't filter out adult content in image searches even when 'Safe Search' mode was on. You needed to clean your act.

Marissa Slayer (CEO, Yahoo) :
CEO: Whhat's important is that we solved the problem. And by Mark, it's not just any Mark, he's referring to Mark Zuckerberg. Yahoo was willing to pay $1 billion to acquire Facebook, but he refused. I heard rumors that had it been an offer for $1.1 billion, the board of directors would have forced Mark to accept the offer.

Scary Page (Founder, Google) :
Google: Thank you for saving us, Marissa. Had that happened, Yahoo, Facebook, and the internet would have been a completely different place today.

Crowell McAdam (CEO, Verizon) :
Verizon: They got an offer to get acquired themselves, too. In 2008, Microsoft offered $44.6 billion dollars to Yahoo. Yahoo laughed it off and arrogantly said that 'it did not correctly reflect the value of the company.' I'm glad that they rejected the offer. Because in 2016, we acquired it at one-tenth of the price: at only $4.8 billion.

Jerry Bang (Founder, Yahoo) :
Founder: Right, Crowell. We did a lot of good stuff, but unfortunately, couldn't keep up with the times. So far, we've acquired 114 companies but haven't been able to capitalize on the technology or earnings from them.

Marissa Slayer (CEO, Yahoo) :
CEO: I left Google and came to Yahoo in 2012, and I could feel that it was a stressed company. We did not know what we stood for or what we wanted. The investors were angry. They changed 4 CEOs in 6 years!

Crowell McAdam (CEO, Verizon) :
Verizon: Ouch! That's a formula for disaster. The top management must have been all riled up. And before you know, the captains start abandoning the sinking ship.

Jerry Bang (Founder, Yahoo) :
Founder: Sadly it's true Crowell. We did have the market leadership at one point in time, but none of our products could keep with the times. We even moved to mobile technology, thought developing that platform may help us. But all in waste.

Scary Page (Founder, Google) :
Google: Don't be too hard on yourself, Larry. Marissa was not a great CEO either. She couldn't give the direction the company needed. You were making $4.5 billion in losses! Even your Alibaba cash flows weren't utilized efficiently.

Marissa Slayer (CEO, Yahoo) :
CEO: Alright Scary, enough digging on me. I want to see how Verizon turns this company around. As of right now, Yahoo is practically non-existent. The only good memory people have is Yahoo answers - which were a good source of entertainment.

Crowell McAdam (CEO, Verizon) :
Verizon: Don't worry Marissa, we won't let you down. Yahoo still has potential and as we've known in tech history: it only takes one innovation to turntables.

Marissa Slayer (CEO, Yahoo) :
CEO: I really hope so. Wish you all the very best.