Microsoft
Yahoo staffers clogging the exits
Many people seem surprised that Yahoo would go ahead with layoffs despite its ongoing takeover battle with Microbeast, but the fact is that everything doesn’t grind to a halt when a takeover offer shows up. Yahoo has to proceed as though the deal may not go through, regardless of whether the odds are overwhelmingly stacked in favour of a Micro-hoo merger succeeding (which in my opinion they are). But one thing that is likely to change is the number of people looking for an exit.
Some people — such as Susan Mernit and Ryan Kuder, who have blogged and Twittered their departures — are part of the layoff-induced exodus. Others seem to be leaving of their own accord, however, including (according to a report at TechCrunch) Brad Horowitz, the head of Yahoo’s technology arm, who is reportedly going to the Great Google. Valleywag says he’ll be working on the OpenSocial project.
If I were a betting man, I would expect the number of smart Yahoo employees making that leap to increase exponentially over the next few weeks and months. Just think about it: would you want to not only be acquired by Microsoft — the king of .Net and shrink-wrapped software — but submerged in a sea of merger-related bureaucracy and time-sucking process for the next year or two? I wouldn’t. I hope Google has brought in extra staff to handle all the calls.
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for “Yahoo staffers clogging the exits”
I'm wondering how much politics played a roll vs employee performance in the layoff decisions. Horowitz's departure's got to hurt - his team was *so good* and one of the reasons I felt Yahoo had great potential. They still do of course, but it's getting harder by the day to realize that potential as people leave and the board seems more concerned about fending off MS than making Yahoo valuable.
I agree, Joe -- at some point enough creative people will have left
that it could definitely affect what comes out of either the merged
company or the standalone company (in the unlikely event it manages to
fend off the takeover).
Is there really any evidence that Microsoft wants the tech people at Yahoo? Maybe they just want to get some of their brands and do something with them before Yahoo can completely run any last bit of value into the ground?
What have Yahoo's technologists managed to do other than shed their own marketshare and buy hyped Web 2.0 companies? I actually subscribed with my credit card to Yahoo's music service; too bad it didn't actually work and Yahoo thought the best approach was to refund my money rather than lift a finger to even inquire as to what kind of error I was getting.
Maybe I just don't get why these people that Yahoo is letting go of (along with the ones leaving on their own) are suddenly hot properties, ones whose departure is decreasing the value of Yahoo and increasing the value of anyone who hires them. Yahoo's in a death spiral, largely due to technology, so where were these people to pull them out of it?
That's a fair point, er... n00b. There certainly aren't many signs of
creativity coming out of Yahoo, so maybe some of those people who are
leaving are no real loss -- but it's also possible that there's a lot
of ability inside the company that hasn't been able to make an impact.
Arguably they wouldn't have been able to do so under Microsoft
either, so better they leave now, I suppose.
Brad Horowitz was the conscience of Yahoo's technical and product arm. He was poised to remake that company into a coherent whole, with all the pieces meshing, until the Semel Decker team burdened the organization with layer upon layer of inertia and useless content acquisitions that could have been better couched as partnerships.
What a loss for Yahoo, a gain for Google.