News is going around that Yahoo! is looking for a new CEO. I have no idea if this is true or not, but if it is, I would like to announce that I’m ready, willing, and insane enough to go long and go big with Yahoo! as your new CEO. Yahoo! showed glimmers of hope when it bought Flickr and Delicious. It’s been a bastion of some of the most impressive technology of the last 15 years. I believe it can be great again.

Sounds great, how the hell am I going to do it? I’m going to take the $20bn in market cap and build an empire of product and design talent that will be beyond reproach. Then I will give them the support and freedom to do what they do best: innovate.

1. I’d buy Instagram and put them in charge of both Instagram and Flickr. They would have 100% autonomy over the entire “Yahoo! Photo” division.
2. I’d buy Soft Facade and run them as an internal design and branding agency for all of our products.
3. I’d figure out a way to wrestle The Barbarian Group into the fold and put them in charge of all PR and marketing initiatives.
4. I would buy Twitter and Square in order to bring Jack Dorsey on full-time to run a new division called “Yahoo! Mobile”. He would have 100% autonomy over the entire mobile strategy.
5. I’d buy Path and With for the sole reason of bringing Dave and his team on to lead the new “Yahoo! Social” division.
6. I’d buy the NYT (for a mere $1.5bn!) and recruit John Gruber to be Editor in Chief of the “Yahoo! News” division.

Just think of what we could accomplish if we just let amazing people do what they do best.