We continue to unpack some of history's M&A disasters and this week Toby delves into what he calls YAHOO's Murder of Flickr.
This story kicks off in 2003 during the early years of the internet when Flickr was a fledgling start-up desperately needing a larger partner to accelerate the innovation and seize what could have been a massive transformational opportunity.
On paper Yahoo looked like the ideal partner but in reality the partnership was ambushed by Corporate Development who were intent on treating the deal like any other M&A integration. As a result, the need for synergies and efficiencies took priority and you might even conclude that any desire for innovation was suffocated.
The result was a massive loss of opportunity that should have seen Flickr as a dominant player on the emerging social media stage, but instead saw if denigrated into the backwaters of the internet.