Enhance Time Warner

We discussed the AOL Time Warner merger this past week in my corporate strategy class. My professor jokingly began class by saying (paraphrasing) “since Buckyhoo here worked at America Online, I don’t have to work today, I can just have him tell us about the merger.”

He shared with us a copy of the Lazard Report on why Time Warner should be broken down into four separate companies. There is also a web site started by Carl Icahn and others in his camp on their reasoning behind wanting to do this.

When I read on the case that it referred to the AOL corporate campus as “a slab of glass and concrete in the middle of suburban Virginia,” I decided to email my professor some pictures I took of the corporate campus during my time there. He showed them in class to illustrate the culture at AOL. One of the pictures, shows the AOL 8.0 rollout celebration where employees were lining up to have Steve Case autograph their AOL 8.0 T-shirts. It was a really good picture. Looking at it, I was shocked when I realized it was taken more than three years ago. As much as I like my life at Kenan-Flagler, I do miss my days at AOL.