Yahoo planning 10% layoffs as early as this month, report says

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/news/2016/01/07/yahoo-planning-10-layoffs-as-early-as-thismonth.html

by e15ctr0n • 11 years ago

119 130 11 years ago

bizjournals.com

iofj• 11 years ago

That's the second time : http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/04/yahoo-layoffs-2000-...

gcb02• 11 years ago

second? how quaint...

every single CEO did that. some every year.

mayer did her's in small installments to not show up in the media. but still got the same cut at the end.

i think it's some textbook the board have

influx• 11 years ago

Reminds me of this story:

A fellow had just been hired as the new CEO of a large high tech corporation. The CEO who was stepping down met with him privately and presented him with three numbered envelopes. "Open these if you run up against a problem you don't think you can solve," he said.

Well, things went along pretty smoothly, but six months later, sales took a downturn and he was really catching a lot of heat. About at his wit's end, he remembered the envelopes. He went to his drawer and took out the first envelope. The message read, "Blame your predecessor."

The new CEO called a press conference and tactfully laid the blame at the feet of the previous CEO. Satisfied with his comments, the press -- and Wall Street - responded positively, sales began to pick up and the problem was soon behind him.

About a year later, the company was again experiencing a slight dip in sales, combined with serious product problems. Having learned from his previous experience, the CEO quickly opened the second envelope. The message read, "Reorganize." This he did, and the company quickly rebounded.

After several consecutive profitable quarters, the company once again fell on difficult times. The CEO went to his office, closed the door and opened the third envelope.

The message said, "Prepare three envelopes."

voltagex_3• 11 years ago

There has to be a better way to run a company... this kind of thing from so many companies world wide cannot be good for society as a whole.

hkmurakami4• 11 years ago

Preparing for a sale of their "internet business" perhaps.

alexandrerond• 11 years ago

When Nokia sold the Devices division to Microsoft it did the opposite, did not fire anyone, and let the new owner take care of it...

vonklaus• 11 years ago

Nokia, in many ways, was the pioneer of SaaS. They developed a globally recognized product that would become both the iconic application associated with early cellphone applications and paved the way for a globally distributed market for mobile gaming.

However, as time went on while using the product, it became increasingly difficult to find room to move horizontally as well as vertically within the space. Ultimately, continually completing objectives made it more difficult to pivot.

Inevitably, their SaaS product became frustrating and deprecated and the marginal utility diminished. With a lack of new offerings Nokia was forced out of the market it created (Snake as a Service) and we were forced to go back to playing the helicopter game on the bewest RIM blackberry.

Alupis4• 11 years ago

and let the new owner take care of it...

That was likely part of a carefully planned PR move. Microsoft was in a position to be able to weather a massive layoff, especially if it was spun as reducing duplication after picking up a new division. Nokia, on the other hand, would have looked far worse selling off half the company after a huge layoff.

gcb02• 11 years ago

investors who bought YHOO just to wait the Ali baba sale would love the company cut 500mi/year over year in salaries (or disinvest on products?) so when the dismantling finally comes the pie slices are bigger.

Esau• 11 years ago

Don't worry people; I am sure the CEO will be okay.

notacoward3• 11 years ago

Yeah, all the "wealth creators" at the top will do fine. It's only the people who did the work and made the stuff who will be laid off. Their fault for not cultivating the right connections.

Alupis4• 11 years ago

It's only the people who did the work and made the stuff who will be laid off.

Well... what do you expect? You're either the job creator or the job filler.

If you could create jobs and had the right motivation and ability to do so, you wouldn't be filling a job.

Their fault for not cultivating the right connections.

And yes, knowing the right people is part of that game.

And yes, sometimes the job creators must destroy some jobs in order to save the rest. What's better... 10% of Yahoo! laid off... or 100%?

kzhahou• 11 years ago

I'm surprised by the support you're getting, because the HN hivemind fully supports it when founders exit with 50-10000x what rank and file gets. I wonder if HN doesn't see a problem with founders because they all hope to be a billionaire founder themselves one day, but they don't personally relate to hired or big-company CEOs.

thaumasiotes• 11 years ago

    It is we who plowed the prairies; built the cities where they trade
    Dug the mines and built the workshops - endless miles of railroad laid
    Now we stand, outcast and starving, 'mid the wonders we have made
    But the union makes us strong

I don't really mean to express an opinion here, but I was struck by how closely the views (and even the rhetoric) corresponded. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solidarity_Forever )

w1ntermute2• 11 years ago

Mayer will be walking away with a $158M golden parachute[0], and will undoubtedly have another nice executive position lined up in no time.

It's amazing how much respect she's garnered in the tech community. From all the public info on her, she doesn't seem to have much product vision - rather, she's just a manager who's good at making data-driven decisions (the infamous "41 shades of blue"[1]) to incrementally optimize products that already have their flywheels spinning, and got insanely lucky by betting on the right horse back in 1999.

0: http://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2015/12/04/maris...

1: http://stopdesign.com/archive/2009/03/20/goodbye-google.html

andrewvc• 11 years ago

I agree and disagree with your point. It's incredibly hard to determine how much good a new CEO has done, and how much is inertia. I think that's a strong argument against the incredibly high CEO pay in contemporary companies, it dramatically underestimates the importance of the work of the rank and file.

That being said, if you ARE going to judge her by contemporary CEO standards, the question is, would anyone else have done better? And of the set of people who could have done better, how many would take an offer to fix yahoo contingent on performance? I think the answer is probably zero.

The whole system is rigged, companies feel like they have to pick someone out of a relatively narrow talent pool, and since they are (wrongly) in such demand, they can all command extremely high salaries.

backtoyoujim• 11 years ago

My guess is that she will run for office, next.

cft• 11 years ago

She was also a girlfriend of Larry Page [0] before Lucy Southworth- that was her ticket to the top.

0: Personal sources

lmm• 11 years ago

she doesn't seem to have much product vision - rather, she's just a manager who's good at making data-driven decisions (the infamous "41 shades of blue"[1]) to incrementally optimize products that already have their flywheels spinning

I could easily imagine that putting someone in the top 20% of managers.

pc86• 11 years ago

I don't want to hijack by focusing on your second footnote, but:

I had a recent debate over whether a border should be 3, 4 or 5 pixels wide, and was asked to prove my case. I can’t operate in an environment like that.

Can any designers explain why it's unreasonable to provide data for a decision when you operate at Google's scale, and presumably can come up with that data very quickly?

It's one thing to override design based on data, and that's something that can be argued on its merits. But when the design answer is "one of these three," why not run the experiment and pick the best?

hwestbrook• 11 years ago

I wonder if 10% is enough of a cut to make the business viable again, or if this is just pandering to the market. Seems likely that someone picked this number out of the air to make a statement.

nullrouted• 11 years ago

Time to buy magic 8 ball stock as Yahoo is certainly increasing demand.

aaawow• 11 years ago

new WhatsApp coming

orsenthil• 11 years ago

This is the best comment.

mailmrg• 11 years ago

10% for Yahoo, given the current suite of products is low. for long time yahoo hasn't streamlined their product offerings. Just streamlining them alone will help them become more leaner. as far as CEO is concerned, yes, she is very much covered.

ausjke• 11 years ago

Been a yahoo mail premium member for so many years (along with its calendar) it's something I care daily. From about 2 years ago the new mail became a hit or miss randomly, overall a much worse experience than what I used to have, and I am unhappy about that.

To me since Mayer came to power, yahoo email became less reliable, a big negative.

bruceb• 11 years ago

I have accounts on the 3 main providers Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail. Which gives me the most trouble? Yahoo Mail.

When Mayer became CEO she told employees to start using Yahoo Mail. I wonder how many are actually doing so. I would think if they were actually using it the product would now have less glitches.

ec109685• 11 years ago

All of them.

ilostmykeys• 11 years ago

A society that has no saftey net except for the lucky and rather dumb 1%ers is one that will fall apart, sooner or later. Or experience radical disruption.

yeukhon3• 11 years ago

Yahoo needs to kill off half of their products and just focus on four things:

* news (finance & sports)

* Search & Portal (that's where they make $$$)

* YMail (because there are still millions of users)

* fantasy sports and extend it.

Spin off Tumblr and Flickr into a startup focus on content and high-quality photo source (TBH there is very little quality content on Tumblr and the attraction / hype is gone - speaking from user after five years of using Tumblr), and other applications should be killed, including their article reading mobile app, Developer network, and the newly resurrected Y! Messenger.

BTW, Yahoo is one of the most generous companies out there paying security bounty (good and bad for too many submissions :] )

aylmao• 11 years ago

Disagree about Tumblr.

A year ago it was still the fastest growing social platform, and it still proves to be (especially in 2015) the big source of viral internet content.

yeukhon3• 11 years ago

Fastest doesn't mean actually making tons of money. Sure vaulation on # of user, but a business can't live forever with # of users. How many of these users are making original contents? I keep seeing posts from years ago getting liked over and over by the people I follow on Tumblr.

branchless• 11 years ago

Love the yahoo stock portfolio view. If you know a better one please let me know, just for my interest.

reddygaru• 11 years ago

Don't kill Tumblr please. It is my go to source for porn.

wsc9812• 11 years ago

There's still Bing Videos[0]. It's super effective!

---

[0] https://www.bing.com/?scope=video

mrweasel• 11 years ago

Strangely enough Bing Videos doesn't work anymore. I don't know if it's a regional thing or if they killed it.

codyguy2• 11 years ago

They could have been serious contender in semantic search. I remember trying to reach out to some yahoos regarding an ambitious, yet serious proposal on semantic search using ThatNeedle.com. we could have made an impact. I could not get to the right audience even for a demo or a proposal. I guess they have too many silos built on top of an ivory tower. Nonetheless, it would be sad to see them fade away.

ugh123• 11 years ago

You mean you tried to peddle your startup (for acquisition likely) to them and you couldn't get your foot in the door? And that could have made them a "contender"? Please

codyguy2• 11 years ago

outsourcing search to Bing certainly didn't help. Not sure they had much to lose in search.

brandon272• 11 years ago

I've thought for some time that Yahoo! should have moved into the streaming video business, including emulating Netflix and producing original content on a subscription basis. In the very least it would have been a way to lure people to their website and get them to spend a lot more time within/adjacent to the Yahoo! ecosystem.

Come to think of it, I'm not even sure if Yahoo! has ever done anything video related. I wonder why?

bsimpson• 11 years ago

https://yodel.yahoo.com/blogs/general/live-yahoo-saturday-ni...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_original_programs_dist...!

bitL• 11 years ago

Next logical step - Yahoo should hire Elop as CEO ;-)

Yahoo planning 10% layoffs as early as this month, report says

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