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An Insider’s Account of the Yahoo-Alibaba Deal

Harvard Business Review

The idea was simple: Combine the best of both companies into the new Yahoo China, which was projected to generate more than $25 million in revenue in 2004. We were optimistic about Yahoo’s future in China as the deal closed in January 2004. billion — the world’s biggest internet offering since Google’s IPO in 2004.

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The Real Reasons Companies Are So Focused on the Short Term

Harvard Business Review

From 1970 to 2004, the percentage of CEOs hired from outside the firm increased from 12% to 39%. The shift in patenting policy was not to protect innovations, but rather to license them and/or to use them as chips to gain access to other firms’ technology. Instead of decentralizing R&D, recentralize it.

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Using Supply Chains to Grow Your Business

Harvard Business Review

Global supply chains can cut across many “cultures”: national, industry, technology, market segment, and more. Luckily, this single contract was pivotal in helping HarQen reposition themselves from a technology-driven voice response company, to a market-driven recruiting systems one.