Yahoo Board Poll: Cuban Embargo

Sam Gustin has just received a sealed envelope from our auditors at PriceWaterhouseCoopers containing the results of our highly scientific Yahoo board poll.

With the company set to add two more board members today, we asked our readers which of the following choices would be "the worst thing to happen to Yahoo since Google?" The poll ran on Portfolio.com from Monday July 28 through today.

From Carl Icahn's slate we offered up four candidates: Adam Dell, brother of Michael, who runs the eponymous computer giant; Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks owner and Web 1.0 billionaire who sold Broadcast.com to Yahoo for $5.9 billion in stock in 1999; Jon Miller, the former AOL chief with a penchant for Tai Chi; and Frank Biondi, Jr., who ran Viacom late last century.

Portfolio.com readers have spoken! Drumroll, please!

By an overwhelming margin, the savviest business news readers in America said Mark Cuban would be "the worst thing to happen to Yahoo since Google."

Cuban trounced the competition, winning 67 percent of the vote among the 205 readers who took the poll. Frank Biondi received 15 percent, Adam Dell received 12 percent, and Jon Miller received 7 percent.

It's not hard to understand why readers thought Cuban would be a bad choice for Yahoo's board. If he acted like he has on the sidelines during NBA games featuring his beloved Mavs, Cuban would be a major disruption, to say the least. As Mavs star Dirk Nowitzki once said about Cuban, "he needs to know how to control himself a little.". □