Yahoo 2012 Annual Report Download - page 18

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Since the beginning of 2012, we also made significant additions to our Board of Directors. Currently, our Board
of Directors is composed of:
• Marissa Mayer, our CEO; Alfred Amoroso, our Chairman of the Board; John Hayes; Susan James; Max
Levchin; Peter Liguori; Daniel Loeb; Thomas McInerney; Harry Wilson; Maynard Webb; and Michael Wolf.
2012 BUSINESS HIGHLIGHTS
During 2012, we focused our attention on people and products—laying the foundation that we believe will make
Yahoo! an incredible place to work, and a company known for product excellence. Selected highlights of 2012
are:
• Products. We launched a new and improved version of Yahoo! Mail, making it faster, easier to use and
available across the Web and on Windows 8, iPhone/iPod touch and Android. We also redesigned the Flickr
application for iPhone and iPod touch, making it easier to capture, share and discover photos. The new Flickr
application allows users to share photos by e-mail, with the Flickr community and via your social network of
choice, including Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr.
• Talent. We focused on hiring top talent, including a new talented and experienced management team. We also
acquired two mobile application developers, Stamped and OnTheAir, accelerating our efforts to build an
exceptional team of mobile engineers, product managers and designers. Our employees and culture are
fundamental to our success, and attracting the best people to Yahoo! is critical. We are focused on a number of
initiatives aimed at making Yahoo! the absolute best place to work. In 2012, we introduced rigorous hiring
protocols; quarterly performance reviews for all employees; aggressive quarterly and annual goals for the
company, for teams, and for individuals; a new product-readiness process for launches; internal feedback tools
for new products; smartphones and higher performance laptops for all employees; free food worldwide; an
employee-driven system for improving processes and efficiency; and weekly all-hands meetings to
communicate transparently and accountably on the most important issues facing the company. These efforts
have been executed quickly and we believe improved our culture and made Yahoo! a better place to work.
• Advertising Solutions. We launched Genome from Yahoo!, an online advertising solution that combines data
from Yahoo! and other online sources to help marketers more directly target the audiences who matter most to
their businesses.
• Content Partnerships. We signed a number of deals to bring our users the most compelling content on the Web,
across categories and devices. We announced cross-platform content distribution and promotion agreements
with Clear Channel, CNBC, NBC Sports, Spotify and Wenner Media. Yahoo! also launched omg! Insider,a
multi-platform entertainment news series that combines the popularity of CBS Television’s The Insider with
the online reach of omg!. Yahoo!’s agreements with Facebook launched a new advertising partnership,
extended and expanded distribution arrangements, and settled all pending patent claims between Yahoo! and
Facebook.
• Compelling Original Content. We continued to innovate on Yahoo! Screen, introducing new programming
such as Electric City (created by and starring Tom Hanks), comedy hit series Burning Love (produced by Ben
Stiller’s Red Hour Digital) and Cybergeddon (by Anthony Zuiker, creator of CSI).
• Shareholder Value. We closed the initial sale of our shares of Alibaba Group Holding Limited (“Alibaba
Group”). At the closing, we received approximately $7.1 billion in total consideration for the 523 million
ordinary shares we sold to Alibaba Group. Approximately $6.3 billion of our consideration was received in
cash and $800 million was received in Alibaba Group preference shares. At the closing, we also received a
payment of $550 million in satisfaction of certain future royalty payments under our existing Technology and
Intellectual Property License Agreement with Alibaba Group. We previously announced plans to return to our
shareholders $3.65 billion in after-tax proceeds, or approximately 85 percent of the net cash proceeds we
received. We have returned $2.1 billion to our shareholders through share repurchases from May 20, 2012, the
date we announced the share repurchase agreement, through December 31, 2012.
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