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Sun Valley shadows Yahoo’s Yang
July 10, 2008
After missing the first two days of the Allen & Co conference in Sun Valley, Jerry Yang of Yahoo has finally arrived and is being chased by reporters wherever he goes.
Despite the pressure being applied to Yahoo by Carl Icahn and Microsoft, Mr Yang looked pretty unfazed.
He then told Reuters and the Associated Press that he didn’t think he would meet Microsoft at Sun Valley, but he ignored questions about whether he was planning to stay with the company. This is unlikely to do much for the speculation surrounding his future.
If you thought the annual gathering of media moguls, bankers and tech entrepreneurs was an orgy of self-congratulatory back-slapping, you might want to think again.
Sparks flew at a morning session here today when Rupert Murdoch launched a strong defence of President George Bush, in response to comments about America’s global image from Niall Fitzgerald, the deputy chairman of Thomson Reuters.
According to Techblog’s man in the conference room, Mr Fitzgerald gave a gloomy assessment of the US. He was talking alongside Muhtar Kent, chief executive of Coca-Cola and Sir Howard Stringer, chairman of Sony.
Mr Fitzgerald, the former co-chairman of Unilever was “pretty down” on America, according to my source, blaming, among other things, foreign policy mistakes by President Bush. “That annoyed the hell out of Rupert and he really let him have it.”
Apparently, Mr Murdoch then stood up for President Bush and defended the decision to invade Iraq. He then apparently said the president’s problem was “one of communication, not practice”. It was, our man adds, “a pretty sharp rebuttal”. Then it was Sir Howard’s turn to speak and he, apparently, warned those in the room against writing off the US.
Gee. Maybe these folks should stick to their knitting. Good try, Rupert, but US foreign policy is too tough a sell for even you.
Posted by: stella | July 11th, 2008 at 7:50 am | Report this comment