AOL Boss Randy Falco Begs Time Warner To Put Him Out Of His Misery (TWX)

YES! Please sell us! This has gotten very old!

how about putting us long suffering shareholders out of our fucking misery?!!!

$14/share????? WTF

sell this POS.

Randy's tour of duty will be over soon, one way or the other:

1. The firesale of AOL to anyone with a pulse occurs this year (the desired New York outcome), or

2. AOL has a weak 3rd and 4th quarter (the path they are marching down), and New York "makes a change".

Just make sure the exit includes Ron too - he is culpable for all the operational misses.

Go Jon Miller!

I heard the offer was $4BN for AOL keeping Falco and Grant in management, $5BN without them.

eric it is good to see you are back at doing what you do best. I guess the next post will be how you wanted to have miller's love child.

Gordon,
Is the stock a piece of shit, or are you for still owning it at $14?

All of you poster's who think they know what's going on at TW w/ all of the Insider talk are all full of shit.

you can't possibly know what's going on, b/c Jeff doesnt know what's going on and Randy/Ron don't know what's going on...

A) Time Warner doesn't know how to manage the asset

B) the AOL Management 'team' doesn't know how to manage it either.

C) Ron just wants to be Jeff's right hand man again...

So please just f'ing end this charade...

Everyone who purports to be a genius shareholder is a moron for owning this stock, so just sell it and get on w/ it, unless you like the misery.

Too funny!!... Even the CEO is a Zombie.

Waiting for allgood or pissed to comment and spin this one up!

Even the CEO of this giant turd is just hanging on for a check right now.

C'mon tell us all how AOL needs just one more quarter.

As the once wise Nelson said to Bart.

HA HA!

No prospective AOL purchaser could hope to achieve a ROI on the AOL assets purchased equivalent to the %'age saving that prospective purchaser could make by just waiting for the price of AOL to come down further.

This has been true throughout the last 2-3 years that AOL's been for sale and is still true today. AOL will always be cheaper tomorrow, and probably by a lot.

How sad for the entire AOL staff....their CEO has now proven he is inept at even keeping his own mouth shut. There is no excuse for the senior most leader not still waving the flag. Anyone still drinking the kool aid now is just trying to keep their spirits up so that they can collect their paychecks.

While all this is going on it is no surprise that they are going to miss the back half of '08 and not even come close to the shares of their competitors. Companies can miss goals during times like. However, losing share is what demonstrates how the advertising marketplace views your product and sales team.

Most companies would be turning over sales leadership. But, at this point why bother....they couldn't get any real talent in there to take the jobs. Maybe their EVP of sales and National Sales Director can try to learn what the marketers need or want....Looks like their only choice while they wait to be merged or sold.

Pity the people that are still trying to do their jobs while their leaders whine about being sold.

If these possible purchasers of AOL are even remotely as smart as RIM, they will wait until AOL implodes, and simply hire the intellectual talent (yes there is some) that lives underneath the incredibly incompetent senior level management that has been at the helm at AOL for the past 4-5 years. The technically talented Voice Services division of AOL was actually a small team in Halifax Nova Scotia. This team built products that were far superior to Skype, but due to lack of vision, lack of technical understanding, and lack of timing, the products never had a chance to succeed. RIM, saw the talent behind these products, and simply waited until the Voice Services development was essentially shut down, and snapped up the technical talent without having to pay any overhead for the AOL (garbage) assets. Very well played RIM !

Hey,

And don't forget about all those wonderful internal tools coming out of the Tools group, where their motto is: "our few dozen are always right and our users are always wrong"

Please do tell where this supposed talent resides in AOL?

I really want to know. Development?? Product?? Operations?? Where??

Maybe...the employees could get together and buy the company from TW.
We've got the people and the properties, we could prevent this titanic from sinking.

The reality is that there are great things happening at AOL with great feedback from marketers.

Here is a recent feature article where top industry agency execs are commending the recent changes and integration under Platform-A.
http://www.nma.co.uk/Logon/ResourceBarrier.aspx?RequiredServices=17,|&PipelinedPage=/Articles/39760/Online+Display+Special+Platform-A.html&PipelinedQueryString=liArticleID%3d39760


In short AOL is a head of the curve with their strategies and soon Yahoo and MSN will need to go through the same changes to minimze losses and make it easier for marketers.

unfortunately AOL went through first, but maybe that is to their advantage. If TW really cared they would realize the value that the business has and get behind it instead how they are approaching it now...Wondering what TW's digital strategy is after they sell AOL. Wonder what Bewkes would say. My opinion, AOL has a ton of value.

The real problem is time warner hates this company. It has hated it since the merger. The division has been up for sale forever. Tw hurt it with broadband (roadrunner), content, distribution, advertising, and refusing to split the company and sell access. I'm amazed aol has been able to grow the business and build platform A. Watch them sell aol and have it come back to haunt them.

Time Warner is flat out ugly and bewkes has a blind eye for the future.

Included in his dumb decisions are hiring his friend to run hbo despite a history of sexual harassment incidents, selling comedy channel for too low, putting his dwarf ass kisser in charge of aol's operations and spending billions of dollars on share purchases to get rid of Icahn.

Need new leadership at Time Warner. The strategic blunders continue on the levin/parsons/bewkes watch. These guys are all about preserving their jobs while the company keeps falling further apart.

Netscraper why don't you tell us your real name. You seem to have no problems insulting levin/parsons/bewkes. Let's see how you stack up.

someone needs to be BEATEN AND HUNG for the BEBO purchase.

@aol doing it right

Read the link from the uk site. Glad there was a good article in the UK. The results are in the share numbers. Has Platform A grown share across the board? The answer is NO. And that is why Platform A is failing. Combining sales has yet to show that AOL could grow share across the board. Marketers in the US are giving Platform A less dollars YOY in terms of their overall percentage of dollars than Platform A's competitors.

Please if you have share analysis from an audited reproting firm share them here. I know shareholders would love to know if Platform A is increasing their overall shares.

Aren't these the same guys who paid hundreds of millions for "goodwill" with the Bebo acquisition? It seems to me that Falco, Grant, and their minions long ago proved that they're incompetent and not be trusted. If anybody is to blame, it's Time Warner, for not taking the keys away from these kids sooner. Here's a clue, Time Warner: get over yourselves. In spite of itself, AOL still has some decent products (AIM, for example), but the longer you screw around with this the less value you'll recover.

Get rid of Falco, get rid of Grant. They're useless where they are, and are pretty much a waste of air at this point. However, your shareholders had a right to expect some things to improve when Bewkes came on board, and your screwing around with what's left of the company is only making things worse.

Hey, "AOL Doing it Right,"


Are you coming to the CorpComm lunch tomorrow? We're meeting at the Wegmans at 12:30. Hope you can make it.

wait'll next year! zzzzz...

The emergence of new technology and application of same often give clues, and advantages to the despised, the weak and initial laggard; that opportunity has come for AOL. However, the techies in this organization should be celebrated, then the so called executives, those over-rated, over-paid technocrats asked to confess their collective incompetences. With a few hits and luck, AOL will come tops. It is understandable that the CEOs are lazy thinkers, who just compete among themselves, by repeating and believing their own voices.

@truthseeker

Your credibility as a someone who loves to right negative comments on this blog just went down the drain. If you would have really read the article you would have realized that even know it was a UK reporter, all the advertising executives quoted were from the US, and one of them specifically said they were giving more money to Platform-A. (More Market Share)

"We spend more money because we have better flexibility so can move money into different parts depending on what's working hardest. The single point of contact is a terrific asset, especially as we were able to keep our AOL account handler and add in the skills of the rest of the platform."

A lot of progress has been made at AOL and Platform-A over the past year and things are starting to pay off as we have made it easier for marketers to take advantage of all the great assets.

I would suggest you really read it next time before commenting.

@AOL doing it right!

If that's the case why did i get laid off last year? How many missed quarter until you give up on the were making progress? It's been at least 4 quarters in a row and it looks like the next couple will be bad.

I do not know why there is not a class action lawsuit against TW for what is the equivalent of corporate malpractice for the hirings of the senior management of AOL - almost all of whom are completely unskilled for their jobs (and hence, the reason everyone is seeing the resulting incompetency):

1)CEO - Falco: Never worked at an Internet or technology company. His secretary at NBC used to read his emails, since he didn't like to use computers. um HELLO? and he's made CEO of AOL to turn it around? I think not - I think TW has always wanted to sell it and put some figurehead with no power (see COO) in for image control. Just like the whole moving AOL HQ to New York was a farce - huge shareholder $$ into new offices for the SOLE purpose that the exec leadership team who all were living in NY/NJ prior to their being hired no longer had to commute to VA. So, now they work in NY and NEVER go to VA, where the majority of the corporate staff still are. They manage as absentee landlords - very sad.

2) COO - Grant: Bewkes' boy. Used to be a deal negotiator at AOL then went up to be Chief of Staff for Bewkes, where he did operations STRATEGY. He had all of TWO reports on his entire team. TWO. He then is given the role of COO, where he manages THOUSANDS never, ever having operated anything in his life. His mistakes are due to his lack of experience and arrogance.

3) CFO - Kumar: Was a Director level at AOL, also doing deal negotiations for Grant. Promoted to VP under Grant at TW corporate (doing STRATEGY). Had ZERO reports. Promoted from VP to EVP (I guess some people don't need to take the SVP interim level) at AOL as CFO. She was a junior investment banker for 1-2 yrs out of Bschool. Other than that, she has no CPA, no finance background and no managerial background and is made CFO of a company that was fined $1B cumulatively by the SEC and DOJ for accounting fraud. Very intelligent woman but clearly, the absolute wrong skill set for such an important position.

WHY, WHY is no one accountable for hiring people who have the appropriate skills to run this company? Bewkes is responsible for Grant's appointment and ultimately the acquisition of Bebo. All of this doesn't matter anymore, as this management team has run whatever was left of AOL into the ground. Hope they can sell the bits and pieces to various chop shops.

Umm, am I the only one that calls B.S. on this report.
I've never heard Randy call HQ 'New York'. And that label's even more irrelevant now, given AOL is in New York too.
I think this may well be a former employee who's a touch bitter, and didn't realize AOL has relocated to New York.

I'm certain the MS/AOL deal will pass, once (if) they ever manage to sort out the Google holding. I guarantee there are a lot of people at TWHQ regretting endorsing that deal now (given it seems to be a big hurdle in current negotiations).

Each time you Corp Comm tools attempt to refute things, you are always subsequently proven wrong (the layoffs, etc.), yet you still keep plugging away. Still, it keeps you at the feeding trough, and I am sure you need to do what it takes to hang on, which is human nature (and understood at one level).

The truth is that Randy isn't engaged AT ALL in these external dialogs, because one meeting into the process, the buyers recognize what a total empty suit he is. At least "New York" is smart enough to recognize it, and lets him share Sarah Palin's isolation chamber!

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