[Julianhearn]

This is the reason for staff slacking off:

Google's mission: Google’s mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Facebook's mission: Facebook's mission is to make the world more open and connected.

What is yahoo? Yahoo! makes the world's daily habits inspiring and entertaining.  By creating highly personalized experiences for our users, we keep people connected to what matters most to them, across devices and around the globe.  In turn, we create value for advertisers by connecting them with the audiences that build their businesses.

http://yhoo.client.shareholder.com/faq.cfm

Note: if you do a google search for yahoo mission, nothing is found on yahoo itself. The lack of a big hairy goal is not motivating.

[vellum]

I don't think you need a unifying mission. Take Apple, for example. They just make great product lines.

Their mission statement [1]:

What is Apple's mission statement?

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.

Yahoo could do the same by paring their offerings into a set of great products.

[1] - http://investor.apple.com/faq.cfm?FaqSetID=6

[Julianhearn]

Having a mission like "the best personal computers in the world" sounds like a pretty hairy mission to me.

[chrisyeh]

Yahoo has been adrift for well over a decade. Once upon a time, Yahoo stood for something: A hierarchy of the web. It hasn't had a real purpose since 2000 or so.

I hope Mayer finds a purpose for Yahoo, but we won't believe it until it starts actually working.