Q: One of your most visible shareholder activist plays this year has been Yahoo!, whose shares have lost more than half their value since Jan. 1. What's you assessment of the situation there? A: I'm on the board, and I certainly like some of the board members. They really take seriously what is happening and what should be done there, but I don't think some on the board are correct in their views. I've said this before: Yahoo! should make a deal with Microsoft [MSFT] as far as selling its search capability.

Q: What would the future be for Yahoo! without search? A: They would still be one of the top content companies; they are very good at that. Yahoo! would still have the search capability. So when you go to Yahoo!, you could still use the search function, but Microsoft would handle it. Microsoft can afford to fight Google [GOOG] better than Yahoo! can. That is, Microsoft has the resources to put in the billions of dollars on the technology for search it may take over the next decade.

Q: Let's move to another of your recent targets, Time Warner. That worked out well for you. You pushed to have the company broken up. That didn't happen, but a big share buyback helped boost the stock price. A: It worked out well, financially. I think it turned out that we were correct in what we wanted to do, and Time Warner is sort of doing it. Sometimes, it takes a few years for ideas to be accepted. Sometimes they never are. We sold most of our stock in the company, and so we did well.

Q: Motorola, which you've also targeted, has had a disappointing stock performance in recent years. You've gotten representation on the board. What's your assessment so far? A: The new co-CEO, Sanjay Jha, is working hard to correct the situation, and the other co-CEO, Greg Brown, is working hard to cut costs. I've always thought that Motorola is a great company.

Icahn's recent winners include Time Warner (TWX); ImClone, which Eli Lilly (LLY) bought recently; and the Stratosphere, a Las Vegas hotel and casino that Icahn sold at a big premium. His effort to get board representation on Biogen (BIIB) came up short, however. And the jury is still out on Yahoo! (YHOO) and Motorola (MOT), in which he has large stakes and board representation.

Icahn's recent winners include Time Warner (TWX); ImClone, which Eli Lilly (LLY) bought recently; and the Stratosphere, a Las Vegas hotel and casino that Icahn sold at a big premium. His effort to get board representation on Biogen (BIIB) came up short, however. And the jury is still out on Yahoo! (YHOO) and Motorola (MOT), in which he has large stakes and board representation.