Dan Loeb and Platforms

Google has taken criticism for its recent and controversial stock split. Some wonder if Mark Zuckerberg's 57 percent of voting power in post-IPO Facebook is too much.

I don't.

Each company wants to prevent a Dan-Loeb-type situation.

And it should.

Activist shareholders waging proxy fights distract companies from the real work at hand. And that work is never finished in the Age of the Platform—particularly for a company struggling as much as Yahoo! is. Employees at Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google have way too many other, more important, things to do.

Every minute, every dollar that Yahoo!'s management spends on Loeb represents opportunity costs. Rather than forging ahead, Yahoo! has to deal with yet another crisis (admittedly of its own doing).