There have been quite a number of things coming out of the D9 conference this week, but one of the more recent talks came from Jack Ma that commented that Yahoo should be broken up into smaller pieces. Jack Ma, who is the Chief Executive of Alibaba, has not in the past had a positive relationship with his investors, Yahoo and indeed the United Nations.
“A peace talk is always difficult, always complicated" he said in California yesterday, referring to a dispute his company had which involved the transfer of payment company Alipay to a new owner. Given that Yahoo owns a 43 percent stake in Alibaba, there has been disputes over whether Yahoo"s value has degraded as a result of the sale.
Ma has generally not had a positive relationship with Yahoo in the past and he has a history of making provocative statements. The CEO of Yahoo, Carol A. Bartz, has also previously mentioned her disagreements with Jack Ma amongst others in Alibaba.
According to the New York Times, Jack Ma did say he would consider buying Yahoo but whether it was for comical show is unclear. He did however make a statement that if someone was willing to lend him the money, he"d love to. From there, one can assume he would have the intention of selling off the unsuccessful areas of the business to focus Yahoo on a specific track.