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Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units

reuters.com

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Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units

#91

Post by oldmanjay »

shostack wrote: post #87
nickpsecurity wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nice. Anyone staying at Yahoo despite a continuous, management-driven, downward spiral was already laying themselves off. Just a matter of time. That was before she even entered the picture. I respected her attempt to rescue one of the greats of the Old Web but it was beyond salvage. Now, it will be streamlined, gutted, and sold most likely. As financial management wanted all along...

I know it is popular to hate on the finance industry and management and all, but...honest question here...was there really a better solution? Not trying to discount the human element as it absolutely sucks that many people will lose their jobs. But reallocating that capital that was tied up in Yahoo and clearly not doing any good there seems like an overall smart move if it couldn't be saved. What would a better alte…

I'm not sure what definition of "better" would apply but I'm certain there is a non-zero number of people who would prefer to see yahoo slowly die while paying the last of its money out to workers.

Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units

#92

Post by shroudatlan »

manishsharan wrote: post #58

What about Tumblr ? Is that thing still on? was it worth the bazillion dollars they spent on the aquisition. Also a long time ago, Yahoo made Mark Cuban a billionaire. What happened to the technology they acquired from his company?

I do not work there, but have applied to try to be on their development team. They seem to be ramping up their workforce, trying to find a way to make some more money off the product as a whole. Pretty similar to other social media sites it seems.

Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units

#94

Post by adventured »

smegel wrote: post #35

> Yahoo had about 11,000 employees as of June 30 That's still a pretty big company in tech terms. A bit less than Facebook.

A lot less than Facebook at this point. There's no longer a good comparison to be made there, as Facebook's business is five times larger.

Their Q315 was just about larger than all of Yahoo, and Facebook's sales are growing at 50%.

Facebook earned $1.56 billion in net income last quarter (and they'll do $5+ billion annually going forward). Yahoo is struggling to stay near $50-$100 million per quarter. And that's net income, skewed by various b.s., Yahoo is producing lots of red ink on operating income (FB has ~30% operating income margins).

Facebook is going to hit near $22-$24+ billion in sales over the coming four quarters. Yahoo is stuck around $4.6 billion.

Facebook is a cash generating machine, while Yahoo is becoming AOL: trying to extract dwindling amounts of cash from legacy businesses.

It's a really bad contrast these days.

Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units

#95

Post by Tomte »

yeukhon wrote: post #21
Retric wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are still plenty of sites that are unusable on a mobile phone, so that's one consideration.

Did you mean going over to another site? Because major search engines like google, yahoo and bing have their own app for major mobile OSes. Unless you want to render other sites within your app, that's a whole different story. I am under the impression they want to incorporate Yahoo News Digest (pretty much an update from the expensive Summly acquisition) into the search experience.

I guess he meant that search results that don't render well/fast on mobile could be demoted.

Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units

#96

Post by adevine »

phamilton wrote: post #23
jedberg wrote: post #5

I feel bad for the 15%, but this was necessary. They are severely over-hired. I've gone over there a few times to talk to folks and it's clear that they have a lot of people that are basically making work for themselves because no one has any work for them that actually helps the business.

Depends on the severence package. 6 months of salary when it doesn't take 6 months to find a new job isn't a bad deal.

Agreed. In general, I find there are two types of layoffs:

1. Layoffs where an entire industry is downsizing, and not everyone who was laid off will be able to find jobs in the same industry. I have immense sympathy for these folks - in many cases it is difficult if not impossible to get back to the same salary level.

2. Layoffs where one company couldn't make it, but the industry as a whole is extremely dynamic and growing by leaps and bounds. This is Yahoo's case. While it's always hard when "somebody moves your cheese", it shouldn't really be hard for those laid off to find new jobs. Plus, the writing was clearly on the wall for a long time, so it shouldn't be totally unexpected. As someone who has been in a similar situation, if anything I saw many people looking to be laid off because they would rather have a sizable severance than go down on a sinking ship.

Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units

#97

Post by huac »

oldmanjay wrote: post #91
shostack wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it is popular to hate on the finance industry and management and all, but...honest question here...was there really a better solution? Not trying to discount the human element as it absolutely sucks that many people will lose their jobs. But reallocating that capital that was tied up in Yahoo and clearly not doing any good there seems like an overall smart move if it couldn't be saved. What would a better alte…

I'm not sure what definition of "better" would apply but I'm certain there is a non-zero number of people who would prefer to see yahoo slowly die while paying the last of its money out to workers.

companies are for shareholders, not workers

Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units

#98

Post by shostack »

oldmanjay wrote: post #91
shostack wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know it is popular to hate on the finance industry and management and all, but...honest question here...was there really a better solution? Not trying to discount the human element as it absolutely sucks that many people will lose their jobs. But reallocating that capital that was tied up in Yahoo and clearly not doing any good there seems like an overall smart move if it couldn't be saved. What would a better alte…

I'm not sure what definition of "better" would apply but I'm certain there is a non-zero number of people who would prefer to see yahoo slowly die while paying the last of its money out to workers.

Ok, fair enough. But is there any legal framework in which that could possibly happen given shareholders and their legal interests?

I'm asking for realistic alternatives. While I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your approach, I wouldn't exactly consider that realistic.

Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units

#99

Post by nobleach »

legohead wrote: post #6

So I guess she did mean something when she said, "No layoffs...this week" [1] Brutal. [1] http://nypost.com/2016/01/18/marissa-mayers-job-safety-joke-...

It's incredibly sad when something like this happens. And I sure hope anyone who's found themselves out of a job, success in finding another. Even the "lower performers" still need to work. What I do hope for Yahoo, is that they're taking a solid look at who they consider expendable. Are self-important big shots also losing their jobs? Or are they too important to fire? When I see any company start to get rid of their engineering workforce, and keep all their managers, I get very concerned. It's a testament to how important these people think they are.

As for Marissa, I wonder how easy it'll be for her to find a job. "I bought Tumblr, I threw lavish parties when we really couldn't afford it... my company was about to go under until someone purchased it... BUT, I did get people to stop working from home!". "Hire me?"

Edit - Marissa, not Melissa.

Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units

#100

Post by inthewoods »

I really don't understand why she continues to hold the job - I haven't seen anything that she's done that has worked at either expanding revenue or at least stemming the bleeding. She also seems does not seem to be an effective manager given the turn over at the senior level.
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