Yahoo had already gone bad before bringing in Semel. I think it started during the dot com craze. They had no focus or direction. They were basically becoming like AOL. In fact, that's most likely the primary reason they picked up Semel in the first place. The decision had already been made to be everything for everyone and he was supposed to be the leader to help get them there. Do you remember when they were also an ISP and had a lame magazine? When the crash came they were ditching services and divisions left and right and have really never focused on anything since.