In the film Jerry Maguire, the eponymous agent wakes up in the middle of the night with a vision of how his employer has lost its way. He writes down his thoughts, sends them to everyone in the agency and is fired. So far, Brad Garlinghouse has survived at Yahoo, the internet company, after writing his own truth-telling memo.

Mr Garlinghouse, a senior executive at Yahoo, says that the company has fallen into the "peanut butter" trap by spreading itself too thinly. He complains in his memo, which was published in The Wall Street Journal, that Yahoo has overlapping divisions and managers lack accountability. He proposes simplifying things and reducing the headcount by 15-20 per cent.