Terra Lycos: Lycos terror

Terra Lycos hasn't had the best of days. The US portal, which last year joined up with Telefonica subsidiary Terra Networks in a £12.5bn deal, has lost its CEO and founder Bob Davis, its CFO and $348m in one day. Some might call that careless.

Internet veteran Davis founded Lycos in June 1995 and successfully transformed it from a university project to one of the world's major portals and most recognised names. When the Terra-Lycos deal was announced in May last year, it promised to be one of the world's first converged internet companies, linking Telefonica's fixed and wireless networks - which served 61 million customers worldwide - with Lycos' powerful brand and content. The merger also included a strategic agreement with Bertelsmann to provide content over a five-year period. At the time Juan Villalonga was Telefonica's head honcho and committed the company to a rapid global expansion plan. He was also largely responsible for brokering the deal with Davis. But the flamboyant Villalonga was deposed as Telefonica chairman soon after the ink on the Terra Lycos contract dried. With him vanished the promise of a free hand for Davis at the company's helm. The ensuing power struggle, which finished today, spelt the end for Davis and his cohorts and heralds an uncertain stage for the company's development. The two people with the vision to push the deal through have left the stage. Enter the bureaucrat. The story says more about the growth of high-tech companies than the actual personalities involved. It's about the struggles between the idealism and personalities of entrepreneurs who launch their companies from garages and college labs, and that of the suits with their spreadsheets and market forecasts. Never the twain shall meet, and if they do there are going to be sparks. Last night, Davis reportedly said: "We have been very successful because of our ability to be nimble and decisive. A dual executive role is not conducive to that. I am an entrepreneur and it is best that I move on." When Steve Jobs was recruiting engineers from Apple to work on the original Macintosh project in the late seventies he told them it was better to be a pirate than sail in the Navy. Pirates tend to burn out and fade away; the Navy's an institution. Napster fans beware.