Terry Semel's Quotes

Our new attitude is how can we put you in front of our customer.

Search, which is extremely important, represents about 5% of the page views on the Internet and 40% of the revenue. So, highly monetized.

Sometimes, on a personal level, I wince.

The Internet and Yahoo are firmly established as 'must buys' for brand advertising.

There is nothing to be embarrassed about being profitable.

While more great films are being made every year, it is increasingly difficult to get indies into theaters or on TV.

Yahoo is all about content. Deep reservoirs of important content in many, many strong areas.

Yahoo! is the only company with both scale and leadership in branded and search advertising.

At Yahoo, we were one of the early proponents of the power of content showcased through new media. SnagFilms, with its large library and breadth of digital distribution, can help shape this next phase, bringing great stories to broad new audiences.

I don't think that Yahoo or any other Internet company should try to become a television network. We will be nowhere if we have to create our own content.

I myself am a builder and get totally excited about building Yahoo! as a brand and building it into a bigger and better company. That's what I intend to do.

When I began working in Yahoo, my family moved with me. Despite our efforts, our kids wanted to study in Los Angeles, and I was forced to see my family and friends only on weekends. In the beginning I even enjoyed it, but knew that at some stage I'd want to go back home.

Bill Gore from Goretex was a very strong influence because he was one of the first larger companies to experiment with freedom in the workplace.

Growth and profit are a product of how people work together.

If you look at any kind of modern organization and you think, 'What are the foremost tools of power?' You will find that it is information.

No-one works for money alone and tapping into what people want from their careers and what they have to offer is essential.

Once employees feel challenged, invigorated and productive, their efforts will naturally translate into profit and growth for the organisation.

People are responsible adults at home. Why do we suddenly transform them into adolescents with no freedom when they reach the workplace?

The best way to invest corporate profits is to give them to the employees.

The key to getting work done on time is to stop wearing a watch.

The key to management is to get rid of the managers.

The purpose of work is not to make money. The purpose of work is to make the workers, whether working stiffs or top executives, feel good about life.

The purpose of work is to make the worker - whether a working stiff or a CEO - feel good about life.

A high percentage of organisations develop a military rationale, whereby only a very small number of people make all of the decisions. There is little wonder, then, that people aren't keen to get out of bed and come to work on a Monday morning.

As long as we know what each member of staff agrees to deliver in a period of time, then their working hours, or where they work, are no longer important. This gives people the flexibility to avoid queuing in traffic by coming into work later in the morning or even to work from home. As long as productivity remains the same, then it doesn't matter.

I once worked it out - after $12 million, all millionaires are the same. That's because we're all humans, confined to human scale. How many homes can you live in? How many meals can you eat? You can have a living room the size of a cathedral, but you won't live in it. It's too big.