Laying off George

http://www.zeldman.com/2008/12/16/laying-off-george/

by ajbatac • 18 years ago

67 49 18 years ago

brm• 18 years ago

Sure Yahoo sucks, but take the good side of this story George Oates will do awesome work wherever she goes next so build something that's worth having her work on it and then get in touch

ardell• 18 years ago

Terrible situation, sorry to hear about it. Brm, you're exactly right, as truly high-quality employees are let go from failing big companies it creates unbelievable opportunities for startups to pick them up.

It's true no matter whether you work for a small company or large company--if you do something that's valuable to someone, you won't go hungry.

delano4• 18 years ago

Don't forget about the added sting of having worked on Flickr from the beginning. She was an employee of Ludicorp before being an employee of Yahoo.

mynameishere4• 18 years ago

Here's the real link (question to poster: Why did you link to an unnecessary reference?)

http://george08.blogspot.com/2008/12/not-quite-what-i-had-in...

My comment: Congratulations to the affected. A website that does little besides arranging "img" elements is fundamentally lame. I was hit in the 2001 blowout, and it was probably the best thing that could have happened. Find something good.....

bootload• 18 years ago

"... (flickr) A website that does little besides arranging "img" elements is fundamentally lame ..."

That isn't an accurate description of what flickr does. The kinds of problems they work on are a lot more complicated than arranging images.

mattmaroon2• 18 years ago

And even if it weren't much more technically complex than that, which I'm sure it is, a product is much more than the sum of the technologies behind it.

One of the most ubiquitous inventions I've seen develop in my lifetime is luggage on wheels. The technology is trivial (it's a combination of two simple things that have existed for centuries) but somehow it didn't get invented until the late '80s/early '90s. Now you wouldn't buy a suitcase without it, and it makes travel infinitely more pleasant.

ashu• 18 years ago

I would wager that a comment flippantly (and ignorantly) disparaging a very useful site which unleashed quite a bit of creativity everywhere, is much much lamer.

gaius3• 18 years ago

Flickr's interesting because it's a Web 2.0 darling. There was an article I read that stated that Photobucket got 7x the traffic of Flickr but Flickr got 40x the press mentions of Photobucket. Facebook now owns the online photo-hosting market. The big weakness of Flickr is that its main interaction model is between photographers - Facebook's is between photographers and people in photos.

Flickr may be a cool technology but in a business sense it's an also-ran.

delano4• 18 years ago

You don't understand the situation. Flickr was created by Ludicorp, a start-up that was acquired by Yahoo. George worked for Ludicorp. Whether you think Flickr is valuable or not is irrelevant. She was there in the beginning and now she's been fired. That sucks.

Regarding the reference, Jeffrey Zeldman is widely and well respected. The reference is notable because it provides context into how ridiculous the situation is.

mynameishere4• 18 years ago

Not sure why people are defending flickr. There are lots of equivilent websites, and have been long before it ever existed. I stand by my comment: It's fundamentally lame. If I was a CS professor, I would have sophmores make a clone of it for a 2-week project. Just because it's the most popular in its class doesn't mean it transcends the extreme simplicity of said class.

Frankly, I don't even like it. Whose aesthetic ideal is responsible for the decision to show pictures at a size other than the maximum (up to a practical limit)? Show me the full-sized picture. Just seems obvious.

What exactly does this have:

http://flickr.com/photos/mongol/515509897/in/photostream/

That this doesn't:

http://flickr.com/photos/mongol/515509897/sizes/o/in/photost...

(Obviously, you could put the various widgets next to and below the above picture with plenty of space to spare.)

nostrademons2• 18 years ago

Missing the point. Sites that have been technologically equivalent or better than Flickr have been around since the first dot-com boom. The genius of Flickr was in building a community around it.

It's really easy for technophiles to say "Oh, I could build that in a week", and usually they can. The problem is, nobody will use it. Building a community is really fricking hard - it's the sort of task where everyone says "Oh, I can do that" up until they actually try it and then find out that there's a lot of subtlety to it they've completely missed.

Same goes for Reddit, and Twitter. Those are two other sites that are cloneable in a weekend, but nobody will use your clone.

joshu• 18 years ago

What does cloning some website have to do with computer science?

adamsmith• 18 years ago

I'm sorry to hear how hard it's been for George. Flickr is a great product and has had huge returns for Yahoo.

That said, my uninformed reaction is to consider this a good move. The last thing Yahoo needs is another project with no clear business model, regardless how cool. This is the kind of work that should be funded by massive donations like wikipedia. If it's going to be supported by a company, it shouldn't be one on life support.

davidw• 18 years ago

Yeah, I don't know much about this person, but flying a guy (edit: oops, sorry, girl! that's what I get for writing first thing in the morning) around the world to talk about "the commons project" sounds like lots of money that could be better spent elsewhere. That said, if she's bright and a good worker, why not at least give her the chance to do something else in the company?

zaius• 18 years ago

George is a girl http://www.flickr.com/people/george/

fauigerzigerk• 18 years ago

You know, if yahoo is unable to find a way to make money off something like Flickr, there is no way any number of layoffs will save them.

And there's something else I don't get. Why are they not trying to outsource projects that they do not consider to be core? Why are they not asking people like George to enter into some other kind of contractual relationship with them that would allow the continuation of a good project? Someone as well connected as George might be able to find additional funding for Flickr Commons from other sources.

m0nty• 18 years ago

"Flickr is a great product and has had huge returns for Yahoo."

Personally I think it was a good site until Yahoo! took it over. Now it feels a bit like that local friendly coffee shop you'd been using for years that suddenly became a Starbucks. I'm sure there's room for an innovative competitor there.

gruseom5• 18 years ago

Did anyone else notice the oxymoron here?

"I'll just get straight to the point. You've been affected by the layoffs."

I guess it shouldn't surprise me that a middle manager would call a weasly euphemism getting "straight to the point".

andreyf2• 18 years ago

In his defense, he admitted he was reading a script provided to him by HR.

gruseom5• 18 years ago

We don't know whether that line was in the script or not. If it was, we can chalk the weasliness up to the whole company (which would surprise me a little - I thought more highly of Yahoo).

Incidentally, I agree with the commenters here who've pointed out that the cancellation of the project and layoff itself hardly seem unreasonable or tragic. It's the corporate culture I'm commenting on. If this vignette is indicative, Yahoo is in worse shape than I thought.

noonespecial2• 18 years ago

There seems to be a clue or two missing in middle management.

Its like throwing out the projector because they figure that now that they have the image on the wall, who needs it?

I sense a hard lesson about to be learned. Good luck in your next endevour, George.

JacobAldridge• 18 years ago

"like throwing out the projector because...they have the image on the wall, who needs it".

You just made my day. Thank you.

swombat• 18 years ago

Tip when laying off your blogger/evangelist: be civil. Otherwise, you look like a bunch of assholes. Bad Yahoo, bad.

tsally• 18 years ago

You can't be fired without some sort of severance pay or package, correct? Or am I just crazy.

gaius3• 18 years ago

Varies wildly from state to state, let alone country to country.

ars• 18 years ago

No, not correct. If it's in your employment agreement then yes (rare). If the company is nice, or feels bad for you then yes. But otherwise they have no obligation to do so.

PS. This is US.

Other countries especially france have different rules.

potatolicious• 18 years ago

In states with at-will employment your job can be terminated - by either side - with no notice (hence no obligation for severance), with some exceptions against illegal discrimination (e.g. being fired because you're black).

Most companies will offer you some sort of severance - or at least won't ask for their signing bonus/relocation/etc back, but that's out of goodwill, not legal obligation.

nostrademons2• 18 years ago

Self interest as well. Lots of companies want you to sign additional agreements on the way out (don't trash the computers, don't bad-mouth the company, etc.) and you have no reason to sign these if they don't give you something in return.

Tangurena• 18 years ago

No. This is normal in the US. Severance pay is rare.

cturner• 18 years ago

So will we see a "getting the band back together" effort from Ludicorp alumni? :)

delano4• 18 years ago

I'm still waiting for the next Game Neverending beta.

rthomas6• 18 years ago

Why not just link directly to the actual blog post?

sh1mmer• 18 years ago

#1 I work for Yahoo #2 I wasn't laid off #3 this is 100% my opinion not the company and I have no insight into Flickr policy or strategy

I think the lay-offs are really hard for the people involved however you do them. I think Yahoo could have done better by not keeping people hanging for 3 months.

That said has it occurred to people that it was Flickr Commons rather than George that was seen as an unnecessary cost. Commons is awesome, but it doesn't seem to be something that is going to make money for Flickr/Yahoo.

In terms of the way that George was laid off, how do you lay off someone thousands of miles away? Is there a good way? I doubt it. The script seems insensitive but Yahoo has easily enough revenue to make it an easy target for HR based lawsuits. The script is there to protect the company from people that might exploit a more human process.

There has been a bunch of bad press today about our layoffs it really feels sucky to people, and I get that. I know other people who left and I know Yahoo has given them an amazing package. Since then they have been talking to a lot of companies about a range of roles. I think a lot of those people may come out with a couple of extra months pay because they were laid off. It won't remove the struggle and emotional stress that losing you job has but I hope it somewhat soothes the pain.

I personally find it upsetting that people keep attacking the company for doing what was in the best interests of it's shareholders. I struggle to think of people I know at Yahoo that aren't smart and working hard to make good products.

Maybe not every decision that has been made has been perfect, and maybe there is a more bureaucracy than I'd like but every commentator is a genius in hindsight. I, like Michael Arrington, know that Hitler probably shouldn't have invaded Russia in Winter and that maybe we should have bought Google when we had the chance.

I guess what I'm saying is I expected HN to be a place where people look a little deeper and think a little bit more. I wish you'd do that for us before you continue to throw your stones.

Laying off George

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