Ask.com Loses CEO Jim Lanzone
Jim Lanzone is out as Chief Executive Officer of Ask.com, replaced by Jim Safka, CEO of IAC’s Match.com. Valleywag is reporting that Lanzone was fired by parent company IAC’s CEO Barry Diller, who was reportedly frustrated with delays in launching Ask’s new news site. Even if a product is well-delayed, there’s no one who can doubt that Ask.com was a much improved company under the stewardship of Lanzone, and Diller’s decision really looks like a mistake to me.
From what I’ve seen of Jim, he certainly seemed passionate about the company we worked at the last six years. Jim started as Ask’s VP of product management, was promoted to Senior VP and general manager of Ask.com, and made his way up to CEO. He was a real Ask.com guy, the type of guy who either sits comfortably and does nothing, or is excited by the job and tries to innovate and makeover the company. Lanzone was clearly the innovating type, as evidenced by Ask’s great progress in search engine design and relevancy, and the loss of him is a loss for the entire company.
A commenter at Valleywag says it just right:
… irrespective of the Google empire factor, no one (including Safka) will be able to make Ask perform to its outdated, aged front-facing icon…and I ain’t referring to Jeeves.
Yes, he’s talking about Barry Diller. Diller is too old-school, and he’s from the wrong industry, to understand that Ask.com was doing things right. If he isn’t going to let innovators be innovators, he is going to keep hurting the good companies he’s bought. Let the tech experts run the tech companies, and let the 65-year old media experts stick to what they know, not what they mistakenly think they know.
