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aiolos

Sat 13 May, 2006


Yahoo CEO laments not buying Google

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This is one of those decisions that really changed the world <b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>(at least the online world)<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>
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In a talk with The New Yorker writer Ken Auletta as part of a Newhouse School lecture series,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> Semel was asked what his dumbest decision was after taking the job at the Net media company in 2001.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>
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Shortly after joining Yahoo,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> Semel said,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> company founders Jerry Yang and David Filo suggested he look at buying up-and-comer Google,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> whose Stanford grad founders looked up Yahoo's inventors.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> So Semel said he had dinner with Larry Page and Sergey Brin,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> asking them what their business was with Yahoo paying only <b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>$7 million annually as its biggest licensor of Google search technology.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>
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<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>"They had no thought process on the subject,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>"<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> Semel said in the conversation,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> which was posted online Thursday at the New Yorker Web site.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>
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So Semel nevertheless asked to buy Google.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> They replied that they wanted <b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>$1 billion and didn't want to sell.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> Semel said he'd think about the price.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>
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Another dinner and Semel agreed to the <b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>$1 billion.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> Larry and Sergey replied that they wanted <b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>$3 billion and didn't want to sell.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>
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<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>"I couldn't and didn't buy this company and the rest is history,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>"<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> Semel said,<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b> adding that it was also fortuitous because that harkened the birth of the search-advertising business.<b style="color:#FFA34F"></b>