As a post mortem of sorts, could someone with an understanding of yahoo from the inside explain why they have failed to innovate for 10+ years?
I don't work at Yahoo but I believe the answer is management.
Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units
191–200 of 315 posts
Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
First, I don't think Mayer makes over 100MM per year, or anything close to that. Second, CEOs get paid lots of money because the market punishes firms that aren't growing and have no-name CEOs, and the cost of a name-brand CEO is probably more than cancelled out by avoiding that penalty. By the time Mayer was recruited, the market consensus was that Yahoo needed a turnaround CEO. There are no cheap turnaround CEOs fo…
The figure is based upon stock options and bonuses. It's here in this picture: http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/566edfb272f2c150028...
That's still not close to 100MM/yr and it's contingent, but look, we probably all agree that Yahoo's investors didn't get their money's worth on a marquee CEO.
It is, however, weird to me that everyone's so quick to blame Mayer for that. She didn't make up the game. The game stays the game. If it wasn't Mayer presiding over the decline of Yahoo --- probably still after acquiring Tumblr! --- it'd've been someone else.
Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units
#193I guess this proves that banning work-from-home didn't solve their problems. Yahoo was the internet destination back in the 90s and into the 2000s until Google started to eat their lunch in search and email. In my opinion, Yahoo's strength was its diversity; it was a one-stop shop for everything internet. You could register domain names, set up web pages, sell items, conduct email, instant messaging, etc. all within…
> I guess this proves that banning work-from-home didn't solve their problems. I don't know what's the big deal about that. It affected ~200 people max. Yahoo was just tightening the restrictions, bringing them in line with the rest of the Valley companies. And yet people still think that it was a big deal; it wasn't. (Source: I was there.)
Maybe it wasn't a big deal for you but it was perceived negatively overall and it hurt Yahoo's reputation (or whatever remnants of that remained at that point in time). If only 200 people were affected then it wasn't worth the backlash it created and wasn't a smart move. Anyone who was impacted by it, e.g. wasn't able to go pick up his kids or stay home for a plumber to come fix his sink, wouldn't be happy and his unhappiness would impact people working with him. These sort of moves can hurt the "spirit" of a company irrevocably.
Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units
#194As a post mortem of sorts, could someone with an understanding of yahoo from the inside explain why they have failed to innovate for 10+ years?
I don't work at Yahoo but I believe the answer is management.
How so? As in they just never hired the best people/created processes that resulted in innovation?
Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
That article is really damning. Makes it seem like she is going to cash out as Yahoo! goes down in flames around her. All she needs to do right now is keep it alive long enough to cash out all of her stock... Someone remind me again why corporations pay their CEOs over 100m/year? And tell me about value, that's a huge chunk of change for someone in Yahoo!'s position, they could use that money to keep employees workin…
First, I don't think Mayer makes over 100MM per year, or anything close to that. Second, CEOs get paid lots of money because the market punishes firms that aren't growing and have no-name CEOs, and the cost of a name-brand CEO is probably more than cancelled out by avoiding that penalty. By the time Mayer was recruited, the market consensus was that Yahoo needed a turnaround CEO. There are no cheap turnaround CEOs fo…
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Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's not how it works. That's a terrible suggestion. If you cut perks, your best and brightest will leave much quicker, the elves leave middle earth. And then your company is essentially screwed, because you'll lose all of your key personnel. And you won't save very much money. This is the way of the bean-counters who know nothing of human motivation and morale. $1000 per employee is less than a percentage of their…
I don't believe that the "best and brightest" consider lavish parties as a deciding factor in where they work. Notice how I phrased it. It's not cost cutting. It's about investing in employees. That is something the "best and the brightest" love.
No, the "best and brightest" at a company are interested in the company investing in them at the expense of the dead weight.
They are also not very interested in training, because they don't need it. They want to work on cutting-edge projects.
"Training" is something that the poor performers are going to flock to, because it benefits them. Which is the polar opposite of what the top performers want.
Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units
#197I feel bad. First Mayer had the no work from home thing just to save money and now she's doing this. I feel soon Yahoo will be spun off in to a few different entities if they keep going this way
Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
Lavish parties send the wrong message to employees. If I were CEO I'd say: "No more parties. We're going to use the to retrain employees (instead of firing them) and avoid layoffs." Mayer is turing out to be a terrible CEO. This article describes the various multi-million dollar parties. http://www.businessinsider.com/yahoo-ceo-marissa-mayer-blows...
That's not how it works. That's a terrible suggestion. If you cut perks, your best and brightest will leave much quicker, the elves leave middle earth. And then your company is essentially screwed, because you'll lose all of your key personnel. And you won't save very much money. This is the way of the bean-counters who know nothing of human motivation and morale. $1000 per employee is less than a percentage of their…
This is correct. When belts start noticeably tightening, I'm out the door (or soon to be). Companies know this, so it's typically business as usual before dropping the bomb.
Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units
#199So 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 gets worse. Marissa Mayer accidentally fires dozens of employees: http://nypost.com/2016/01/30/yahoos-marissa-mayer-accidental...
Which is a rumour and hasn't been confirmed?
Re: Yahoo to cut 15 percent jobs, close several units
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
A few hundred bucks per attending employee for a Christmas party is a lot by most working people's standards... probably like 12x + what their company would spend.
Yes, by most people's standards, which is why the piece is working, it creates envy in a lot of people. Same with the "free food" spiel. But Yahoo is competing for Silicon Valley software engineers, and perks are very common, so if you don't have free food, free snacks, office parties, events, and other benefits, you'll have to pay your employees a lot more. Perks are incredibly cheap for the company, because people…
I see your point, but to be honest I'd probably pay not to have to attend Christmas parties at many places I've worked at. I suspect I'm not alone in feeling like this. Point being I don't know that this is really much of a perk......