Yahoo Needs Miller

Kevin Maney climbs out on a limb: AOL made a huge mistake when it punted Jonathan Miller out the door, and now Miller may be the one good thing for Yahoo out of this whole Carl Icahn fiasco.

Icahn is forcing two new board members on Yahoo, and one of his candidates is Miller. Some on-line speculation has even gone so far as to say Miller might wind up on the board now, and in a top executive seat at Yahoo later.

I've had a decent amount of interaction with Miller. I interviewed him at length in his AOL office and on stage in front of an audience. I've talked to him on the phone and exchanged e-mails. He is smart, strategic and willing to take well-calculated chances. At AOL, Miller did the near-impossible -- he hauled the company from one business model (charging its members) to another (relying on advertising). He turned AOL into a media company. He made some great acquisitions, like Advertising.com (which has become an important revenue engine for AOL) and video search company TruVio. He broke fresh ground with the 2005 live on-line broadcast of Live 8. Ted Leonsis, AOL's former vice chairman, has used the language that Miller "saved" AOL.

Why did AOL toss him? Miller might've been a little too aggressive about his ambitions for AOL. I seem to recall that he felt the relationship with Time Warner was holding AOL back. Maybe he pressed Time Warner management too hard. Telling that Miller was replaced by a comparatively bland operations type of guy, Randy Falco.

Maybe now Miller is the guy to save Yahoo. Someone's got to do it.