There are few constants in the technology industry. Yahoo is one of them.
In an industry where more than 60 per cent of startups fail within five years, the company’s Toronto-based vice president of international sales, Jon Finnie, says the now 30-year-old Yahoo has defied the odds by pivoting its focus and changing with the times.
“You can’t just sit back and rest on your laurels in any organization, but especially in a space that moves this fast, and is only getting faster,” Finnie says. “Yahoo is one of the few brands out there that has successfully managed to pivot and stay up to date within this space, and we continue to do so each and every day, while having fun doing it.”
The U.K.-born and raised business and management graduate moved to Canada with his Toronto-born fiancée, now wife, in 2005 without a job lined up in his adoptive homeland.
After spending a year with Corus Entertainment, Finnie applied for a senior account executive role with Yahoo in 2007, where he has remained ever since.
Over the next 18 years Finnie moved from search ad sales to digital display sales, national sales manager, senior director of sales, and then country manager for Yahoo Canada, before eventually overseeing all international sales, which he does from his home base in Toronto.
Founded as a web portal and search engine in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo, Yahoo has maintained a place for itself at the centre of the technology industry through most of the internet era.
Over the years it’s withstood multiple market crashes, failed acquisition attempts, mass layoffs and data breaches, before eventually being acquired by Verizon for just under $5 billion (U.S.) in 2017.
Once the starting point for a journey through the early internet, Yahoo now sees itself as a primary destination for those seeking news and information, financial data, email services and fantasy sports coverage.
Though no longer at the centre of Canadians’ internet experience, as it was in its heyday, Yahoo maintains a firm presence in their lives.
In fact, Yahoo Finance alone boasts 12 million unique monthly Canadian visitors according to Comscore Media Metrix, making it the country’s runaway top source for financial data. Its full suite of online services, meanwhile, are utilized by 26.6 million monthly, or about 81 per cent of the population.
The Star recently spoke with Finnie from Yahoo’s Canadian headquarters in Downtown Toronto about the company’s 30-year journey, what he’s learned through the 18 years he’s been along for the ride, and the role he sees for Yahoo in the lives of Canadians in the age of AI.
How did you end up on this side of the world?
I was working in the telecommunications sector in London living with my fiancée, now wife, and we were considering where we wanted to live and raise a family. My wife is Canadian — born and raised in Toronto — and we saw that as an opportunity to put down roots in a new country.
After spending a few months travelling through Europe and Australia we got married in Toronto about 20 years ago, but after that I had to start from scratch. I didn’t have a job when I landed in the country, I didn’t even have a house; we were staying with her family.
Were you always interested in working in tech?
I had a lot of interests in school — I loved history, biology and geography — but I didn’t feel like they would help me get into the workplace, so I decided to study business and management.
I’m dating myself a bit, but at the time the tech industry was nothing like it is today. I had a Yahoo email address in university, but I didn’t know much about the industry until I got a job in business development at Virgin Media a few years after graduation. After that I worked for a telecommunications company in South-Western U.K., before moving to Canada.
Eventually I got a job at Corus Radio Interactive doing sales for their radio station websites across Canada, and shortly after that I was approached by Yahoo to join their organization.
How did that opportunity come about?
One of my managers at Corus had spoken to Yahoo about an opportunity, and she introduced me to the people looking to hire.
They were launching Yahoo Panama, which was the new Yahoo search advertising engine, and I was brought on to help bring advertisers to the Canadian market.
Search was a large part of the ad ecosystem at that time, and they were seeing double digital growth. I was very intrigued to learn more about that part of the ad ecosystem and try something new.
I also really liked the people I spoke to. It seemed like an engaging and fun place to work, and that’s proven true.
How has the company evolved since?
We like to say that Yahoo is constantly under construction; we evolve every single day to stay relevant with the users who visit our properties and the advertisers looking to engage with our users.
When it was originally launched Yahoo was a web portal, the place where you can be directed to things all over the internet. Our ethos at the time, which came from our co-founders Jerry and David, was that we were a “guide to the internet,” and that’s how we operated back then. We were a one-stop-shop for accessing everything you wanted to do or see online.
That ethos hasn’t changed in 30 years — we still see Yahoo as a digital guide to the internet — but how people engage with the internet has changed over time. Whereas they used to come to our portal to get all the information they need, they’re now often more selective in how they come to see us.
People used to start their day with Yahoo — and many still do — but now they tend to come in and out throughout their day for specific reasons.
They come for Yahoo Finance for their stock info; they log onto Yahoo News to see what’s going on in the world; they go to Yahoo Sports to update their fantasy roster, to Yahoo Life or Entertainment to keep up to date with the latest trends, or to check their email in Yahoo Mail.
The devices have also changed; now they’re on smartphones and mobile apps, listening to audio content, watching video, and accessing content through connected television or smart TV services.
We’ve pivoted from being a guide to being where the user is in terms of how they want to engage with us, to stay ahead of the curve.
From the advertisers’ perspective things have also changed in terms of how they engage our users. When I first joined it was all about home page takeovers and search advertising; today we have a technology that allows client agencies to reach their users or potential users at the right time and in the right way.
What is the company’s position in Canada?
We are experiencing double digit growth year over year. We have a strong presence in the Canadian market, and we are seeing great growth in terms of both users and advertisers.
More than 12 million Canadians engage with Yahoo finance each and every month, and roughly 26 and a half million come to us each and every month, whether for finance, news, email or fantasy sports.
We have offices in both Montreal and Toronto, and Canada is a priority market for us; there’s amazing talent available and so much innovation happening here. That is a big draw and why we continue to invest here.
How do you maintain trust in a world less trusting of traditional news sources?
There’s a reason why we say we are the trusted guide to the internet; people who come to Yahoo have to feel that the news has been properly researched and vetted. Not every place where people get news from these days can say that.
People feel that Yahoo News is a safe space to engage in content. We see ourselves as purple, not red or blue. We offer not just credible news, but independent news, and we curate Canadian content ourselves.
That’s why we partner with organizations like CBC and Canadian Press to get the depth and breadth of news and information that our users are looking for.
What role does AI play in the delivery of news?
We haven’t built our own AI engine, but we utilize AI throughout our entire organization, both on the content side and on the advertising side.
A good example of that would be our acquisition of Artifact, an AI-driven news platform created by the co-founders of Instagram. Rather than incorporate Artifact into Yahoo News we did the reverse and had it power Yahoo News.
Artifact’s proprietary AI-powered personalization technology and other features were integrated into Yahoo News to serve the right article to the right users at the right time. It’s about making decisions specific to content curation. We feel that allows users to take advantage of AI in a safe and responsible manner.
What’s next for Yahoo?
We’ve been around for 30 years, and we’re looking to be around for another 30.
We believe we can do that by putting the user first. A great product leads to great user experience, which then facilitates growth and engagement, which is crucial for our properties but also for our advertising solutions.
So those who come to Yahoo each and every day to explore our content, thank you. And for those who haven’t, please join us and see why so many people make it part of their daily routine.
