Yahoo Finance Valley of the jolly: Why execs are flocking to tech firms
Go West, young man…and woman!
That twist on the famous Horace Greeley phrase of the 19th Century appears apropos for executives in the 21st Century-- the “West” being California’s Silicon Valley.
The latest example: Morgan Stanley (MS) CFO Ruth Porat, called by some “the most powerful woman on Wall Street,” is heading west to take the same position at Google (GOOGL). She’ll replace Patrick Pichette, who announced earlier this month he was retiring.
Porat’s move comes as no surprise to Yahoo Finance’s Aaron Task.
“I think her life will be better as the Google CFO than the Morgan Stanley CFO,” he says. “It’s a less-onerously regulated industry, and it’s one that’s growing by leaps and bounds-- Morgan Stanley has been shrinking. They probably made her an offer that no one could refuse.”
Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Michael Santoli thinks the numbers are pretty hard to ignore.
“She’s going from a $70 billion market cap company in Morgan Stanley to a $400 billion market cap company in Google,” he notes. “That’s a no-brainer for a lot of people.”
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Task believes another important factor is involved-- Porat is a woman.
The fact that she is a she matters a lot, for Google at least,” he argues. “There’s been all this talk about lack of diversity in the Valley-- Google can say hey, one of our senior executives is a woman.”
Santoli feels Silicon Valley is just a good place for top employees to be…whether male or female.
“There are better opportunities for accomplished executives in general,” he points out. “That’s obviously where the money is, where the growth is.”
Plus, he adds Porat isn’t just making a willy-nilly jump into some unproven new economy company.
“It’s not exactly a start-up, that she’s going there to beat the bushes and find the next great thing,” he points out. “She’s going there to manage an enormous balance sheet where a lot of decisions need to be made.”
And her Morgan Stanley experience likely will come in handy in making those decisions.
“A lot of people think Google should be paying a higher dividend, doing more stock buybacks, paying more attention to Wall Street,” he says. “The founders of Google famously just don’t care what Wall Street thinks, but they’re too big a company now to play that game to sort of say we don’t really care how we should manage our balance sheet according to Wall Street.”
Task also believes Porat is an example of a trend in the financial industry today.
“A lot of people who are in top tier MBA schools, ten years ago they would all be thinking about going to Wall Street, maybe a few going to start-ups,” he notes. “Now a lot of them are probably thinking 'maybe I’m better off going to a Google or a Facebook (FB) or a Yahoo (YHOO).'”
Task adds that like the theme song from the 1960’s TV show “Beverly Hillbillies” noted-- California is the place you want to be now.
“The Valley, that’s where the action is, at least of the moment,” he says.
Note: Yahoo is the parent of Yahoo Finance
