????雅虎公司（Yahoo）推崇的核心價值觀包括“樂趣”、“社區”，“卓越”（也就是該公司所稱的“誠信制勝”）。很遺憾，其中沒有包括“挑釁”、“對抗”和“疏遠”這類字眼，否則，今年堪稱首席執行官司考特?湯普森濃墨重彩的一年。

????湯普森于今年一月初加入雅虎，之前為購物網站易趣（eBay）在線支付平臺貝寶（PayPal）的業務負責人。他表示，為了扭轉這家互聯網公司的局面，他已經感受到了“真真切切的緊迫感”。他是雅虎五年來的第五任首席執行官。這五年里，雅虎經歷了拒絕微軟公司（Microsoft）收購要約之后的股價暴跌；此外，由于公司在日益發展的社交網絡領域逐漸被邊緣化，股價已持續數年在每股15美元左右震蕩。

????為了兌現自己的諾言，湯普森在接手雅虎的頭三個月內就采取了一系列大膽的行動。在這個過程中，他的裁員之說震動了雅虎上上下下；同時，他還準備與董事會進行代理權爭奪戰；此外，他對社交網站Facebook發起的專利訴訟也激怒了很多硅谷的電子技術公司同行。這些舉措能否幫助雅虎脫離困境目前尚不明朗，倒是提升了外界對公司的關注度。

????我們好像已經很久沒有看到雅虎在互聯網行業有過什么引人關注的舉動了。早前，雅虎熬過了互聯網發展初期的動蕩歲月，成為至今依然碩果僅存的一家所謂的“門戶網站”，并因此而聲名遠播。雅虎廣受歡迎的網站特色已成為當今網絡的主流，用戶能夠簡單便捷地獲取包括電子郵件、各類新聞、時尚運動以及財經數據等方面的信息。

????然而，互聯網發展日新月異，到了2005年，社交網絡已毫無疑問地成為未來的發展趨勢。雅虎再次將自己定位為早期領導者，并收購了網絡相簿公司Flickr的照片共享業務和社交書簽網站del.icio.us。從此，網絡巨頭雅虎轉變成了社交網絡領域的先行者。雅虎還通過其開發人員網絡培養了一大批程序員。

????但由于雅虎內部存在著嚴重的官僚主義問題，沒過不久，這些本來很有發展前景的計劃全部夭折。雅虎也因為與微軟公司之間曠日持久的收購戰而變得心浮氣躁。此后，谷歌（Google）以及后來的Facebook相繼成為了網絡創新的引領者，而雅虎似乎并未展開什么行動。過去的三到四年中，除了雅虎前首席執行官卡羅爾?巴爾茨曾對公司發表的坦率而富有爭議的評論之外，實際上，雅虎就像是一朵正在迅速凋零的玫瑰。

????然而，情況在本月發生了變化。湯普森正在展現他折騰的本領。首先，有報告表明，湯普森的重組計劃可能導致雅虎14,000名員工中的數千人被裁員。之后，他出人意料地取消了將于佛羅里達舉辦的1,300名銷售人員大會。接下來，他又發布了一份備忘，鼓勵員工更加努力和高效地工作，試圖緩解彌漫于公司內部的緊張情緒。

????上周，雅虎與Facebook協商許可費用短短半個月之后，突然對后者提起了訴訟，指責對方侵犯了包括廣告、隱私權、信息傳送和社交網絡在內的十項專利。雅虎在一夜之間成為互聯網業最受詬病的專利流氓，人們譴責雅虎企圖用“可悲的”、“孤注一擲的”手段來阻撓比它更加靈活、機敏的競爭對手。

????Yahoo's core values include "fun," "community" and "excellence" (which the company defines as "winning with integrity"). It's too bad they don't include "provocation," "confrontation" and "alienation" - because then CEO Scott Thompson would be having a banner year.

????Thompson left eBay (EBAY) as head of PayPal to lead Yahoo (YHOO) in early January, saying he felt a "real sense of urgency" to turn things around at the web company. He was the company's fifth CEO in five years, a period that saw Yahoo's stock plunge after rejecting a takeover bid by Microsoft (MSFT) and vacillate around the $15 a share level for years as the company grew more marginal in an increasingly social web.

????True to his word, Thompson began a series of bold initiatives less than three months into the job. In the process, he's roiled the ranks inside Yahoo with talks of layoffs, set the stage for a proxy battle with the board and angered many peers in Silicon Valley with a patent lawsuit against Facebook. It's far from clear that these moves will help turn Yahoo around. But they've already made the company a lot more interesting.

????It seems like years since Yahoo has done anything to capture the web industry's interest. Early on, Yahoo was notable as the only so-called "web portal" that survived the first, volatile years of the web. It succeeded with popular features that have become mainstays of the web today: web mail, news aggregation, fantasy sports and financial data – all of them simple and easy to access.

????But the web evolves quickly and by 2005, social networking was clearly the future. Here again, Yahoo positioned itself as an early leader, buying Flickr's photo-sharing and del.icio.us's social bookmarking site, turning the web giant into an early leader in social networking. And it cultivated a community of coders with its Developers Network.

????But soon enough, all of these promising initiatives seemed to suffocate inside Yahoo's bureaucratic miasma, and the company became distracted by the high drama of a protracted takeover battle with Microsoft. Since then, Yahoo has seemed adrift as Google (GOOG) and then Facebook set the agenda for web innovation. For the past three or four years, barring some frank and controversial comments by ex-CEO Carol Bartz, Yahoo has been as exciting as a rose losing its bloom.

????But that has changed this month. Thompson is showing himself to be a CEO with a talent for tipping over apple carts. First came reports that Thompson's restructuring could cost thousands of Yahoo's 14,000 employees their jobs. He abruptly cancelled a Florida meeting for 1,300 Yahoo sales employees. Then he tried to soothe workplace tension with a memo hectoring employees into working harder and faster.

????Last week, Yahoo sued Facebook for infringement of 10 patents – including advertising, privacy, messaging and social networking – just two weeks after sitting down with Facebook to discuss licensing fees. Overnight, Yahoo became the web's most reviled patent troll, bilking a more nimble rival in a move decried as "pathetic," "desperate" or worse.