Jerry Yang on Recession and Re-Birth

(Photo by Ken Hupp)

Great quote from Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang during his commencement speech at the University of Hawaii at Hilo. An excerpt from KPUA.net:

“I can promise you that great things are being started right now in this downturn in our economy. Yahoo started in an economic downturn in the early 90’s,” Yang said. “Other great companies, great ideas, products, even social movements have come about as people are throwing away the status quo and doing everything in new ways.”

According the KPUA, Yang added that "success doesn’t come from a high I.Q. or talent, but a willingness to work hard coupled with relentless preparation."

So true, Jerry. Reminds me of a gigantic billboard I saw last night coming off the Bay Bridge that read something along the lines of "Bill Gates started Microsoft during an economic recession" (from my memory). The next big idea is being conceived in cafes, universities and impromptu get-togethers. Nothing better than a downturn to force people to innovate and challenge the status quo.

Let's hear from you. Have you seen examples of people using their ingenuity in the face of unemployment or setbacks to challenge the status quo?

The reality of renewal

After more than a decade of beating up flailing companies as a member of the media, and then working as a strategist for flailing companies being beat up by the media, I’m convinced that the clique about perception breeding reality is true.

No matter how much we try to fight popular perception, it has a way of transforming speculation into a nearly truthy state.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this idea in the context of our financial crisis. Last weekend as I was driving across the Bay Bridge with my fiancée, a piece by NPR’s Guy Raz hit a nerve. He was talking about some indicator revealing crappy data about the economy (big surprise). Guy asked his interviewee whether it was time for us to really panic about our sorry state of affairs, and continued to wonder whether there was any chance for recovery.

I tapped off the power button and mumbled a bunch of expletives. I was upset this doomsayer was ruining my admiration of the brilliant sunset over the San Francisco skyline. Telling people to panic, to roll over and give up, to shame them for poor spending decisions in the past, will do nothing for our country’s recovery.

Back to this perception versus reality truth-ism. There’s a halo effect to doomsday soothsaying that I’d love for someone to quantify. At Yahoo! I watched it happen before my eyes beginning in July 2006 when management announced they’d miss their deadline to launch the Panama search monetization upgrade. The story in the press and blogosphere evolved from “management messed up,” to “Terry Semel doesn’t know what he’s doing” to “Yahoo! is dead in the water versus Google” to “Terry is dumb and Yahoo! needs a new leader who’s as tech savvy as Eric Schmidt.” Down went the stock, out went Terry, in came Jerry. We know how that ended.

You can argue that public perception is a leading indicator of future issues. But maybe it just exacerbates the problem or adds a new negative narrative to the storyline.

Here we are in 2009 and I wonder where we are in the arc of perception. Are we still driving ourselves down with more negative interpretation of data? Sure, the facts are still gloomy. The Labor Department reported unemployment rose to 7.2 percent in December, up from 6.8 percent the previous month. Meanwhile President-elect Obama keeps reminding us that things will get worse before they get better, almost to make people as miserable as possible before he’s sworn into office.

I get it. I get it!

But damn it, I’ll be one of the few optimists in the blogosphere and I'll insist there’s a silver lining to this. Let’s look to the phoenix, that mythological bird that emerges from the ashes of ruin. America was built on people looking for a second chance. We love the comeback story, the beauty of renewal from defeat. Immigrants left their Old World to make a new life in the Zion that’s America to find greater prosperity through the lessons learned from their homelands.

Let’s hope the phoenix that rises is the Harry Potter breed, not the one from X-Men.