There’s a good chance that Yahoo won’t sell itself off anytime soon

I’m not sure whether it’s because of determination or denial, but it looks like Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has no intention of selling the company. Yahoo has had a rough time these past few years, as I’m sure you all know, and rumors that the former Internet giant was considering selling itself off started popping up last week. Kara Swisher, the executive editor of Recode, spoke with a number of Mayer’s friends and mentors this week, and arrived to the conclusion that there’s little chance of Yahoo selling itself off, at least in the near future. 

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is unlikely to sell the company, says Kara Swisher, executive editor of technology site Re/code. Swisher was on a podcast I host with New York Times columnist Farhad Manjoo. We were talking about Yahoo, a company Swisher knows better than anybody else. “I don’t think they’ll put the company up for sale,” says Swisher. Of course they’ll entertain offers, she says, for fiduciary reasons. If they get a really good offer then they would sell, but that seems unlikely. Mayer has a plan for Yahoo, says Swisher, based on talking to sources familiar with Mayer — friends, mentors. Here’s Swisher: “Marissa Mayer is a very aggressive and competitive person. Do you think she wants to sell it? I don’t think so. I talked to a lot of her friends this week. I’ve talked to a lot of people that are close to her, mentors and things like that. She seems to have a plan. I think giving up is not in her nature. The only issue is would they fire her if she doesn’t get what she wants? That’s another difficult thing for the board to do. So, the question is should they stick with a bit longer, those are difficult questions, but it seems to me she is not one that would want to sell.”