Yahoo’s $4.8 billion sale to Verizon, explained

You’ve probably heard this part already: Yahoo is selling its core business to telecom giant Verizon for $4.83 billion in cash. But if you haven’t been closely following the fortunes of the pioneering Silicon Valley company in recent years, you may be wondering: How did we get here?

"It’s honestly really difficult to point to one thing that she did," Yahoo activist investor Eric Jackson recalled of CEO Marissa Mayer. "Those first four or five months when she was on the job, just how much hope there was within the company — I was on the outside of the company, but it was palpable and it was real."

Speaking on the latest episode of Recode Decode, hosted by Kara Swisher, Jackson said he was at first a big supporter of Mayer. But Yahoo’s inability to follow competitors like Facebook in the leap from desktop to mobile turned him into a vocal critic.

"The goals were very far off," he said. "There was this constant promise, ‘We gotta do this. We gotta invest in the mavens.’ There weren’t signs of progress along the way."

On the new podcast, Jackson also discussed how he got involved with Yahoo in the first place, the huge significance of its early investment in Alibaba and why he still doesn’t believe the Yahoo story is over.

"I don’t think it’s too far gone," he said. "I’m really intrigued to see what Tim [Armstrong] and Marni [Walden] and everyone else at Verizon can do. People have been saying Yahoo is a dinosaur for 10 years. They were saying that in 2006, 2007."

You can listen to Recode Decode in the audio player above, or subscribe on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher.

If you like this show, you should also sample our other podcasts:

• Recode Media with Peter Kafka features no-nonsense conversations with the smartest and most interesting people in the media world, with new episodes every Thursday. Use these links to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher.
• Too Embarrassed to Ask, hosted by Kara Swisher and The Verge's Lauren Goode, answers the tech questions sent in by our readers and listeners. You can hear new episodes every Friday on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher.
• And Recode Replay has all the audio from our live events, including the Code Conference, Code Media and the Code Commerce Series. We've posted audio of every single interview at the 2016 Code Conference, so subscribe today on iTunes, Google Play Music, TuneIn and Stitcher.

If you like what we’re doing, please write a review on iTunes — and if you don’t, just tweet-strafe Kara. Tune in next Monday for another episode of Recode Decode!