Yahoo M&A chief Jackie Reses has issued an incredible mandate on how to treat companies that ask to be acquired
In just under three years, she and CEO Marissa Mayer have spent more than $2.1 billion to acquire more than 52 startups, the Wall Street Journal reported in April.
Although acquisition activity has slowed from a downpour to a drip so far this year - Yahoo bought only one mystery company for $23 million in the first quarter, compared to the five it bought last year - her team still receives hundreds of queries from startup owners and employees every month.
And Reses has a mandate that her staff treat every single reach-outs seriously, including responding with a personal email - or, even better, a phone call.
So she said during round-table discussion at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference held in Aspen last week.
"We look at 1,500 companies a year. We don't go far with most of them. We look at about 100 of them in substantive detail. I don't care where the email comes from, even someone emailing us blindly, we will respond to it," she says.
This is all handled by a staff of 15 on the M&A and integration team.
"God forbid" her staff sends a form rejection letter
"We have the polite factor. We respond. I prefer it if we call. Having said that, I do get [emails] from a lot of lunatics," she laughs.
That doesn't matter. Her staff knows they must try and personally respond.
And "God forbid you send a form [rejection] letter, you're doomed internally," Reses jokes. "It's just human. These are people. Their companies are their lifelines."
Buying versus hiring
Many of Yahoo's recent 50+ acquisitions were acqui-hires, buying the company to grab long-term employees and fresh leaders.
And that means that Reses measures the success of her M&A team not by how many deals they close, but by how many people stick around for months and years after the deal, she says.
Reses says the retention rate for Yahoo is high (we've heard over 80%).
And, she says, when people do leave, there's no correlation to leaving because their stock or other bonuses have vested.