14 DAY TRIAL // It's official - Yahoo is now part of Verizon as the long-awaited acquisition has finally closed. The mother company plans to combine Yahoo with its AOL assets into a subsidiary called Oath, which will be led by Tim Armstrong, AOL CEO.
Marissa Mayer, Yahoo's old CEO, has resigned and will no longer go on with Yahoo now that Verizon has taken over. That's not necessarily bad news for either party, especially since Yahoo has barely kept afloat over the past five years with her as CEO, and Mayer will receive a $23 million "golden parachute."
"Given the inherent changes to Marissa Mayer's role with Yahoo resulting from the closing of the transaction, Mayer has chosen to resign from Yahoo. Verizon wishes Mayer well in her future endeavors," reads Verizon's statement.
Mayer also signed a Tumblr post in which she makes a rather lengthy list of things she achieved at the company while avoiding the elephant in the room - hackers managed to break into the company's servers at least twice, stealing data pertaining to 500 million users in one instance and 500 million in a second breach. It has even transpired that employees informed higher-ups about at least one of the breaches back in 2013 and nothing had been done to get to the bottom of things, with both breaches being exposed only late last year.
End of an era
The finalization of this acquisition is somewhat bittersweet. On the one hand, one of the most notable Internet brands will carry on, while on the other, its independent days are over.
"The close of this transaction represents a critical step in growing the global scale needed for our digital media company. The combined set of assets across Verizon and Oath, from VR to AI, 5G to IoT, from content partnerships to originals, will create exciting new ways to captivate audiences across the globe," said Marni Walden, Verizon president of Media and Telematics, which will also include Oath.