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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

#291

Post by forgetsusername »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #110
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…

Depends on one's goal and perspective. Finance people's goal is to squeeze money out of an investment. This is why most companies in Silicon Valley wont stay: they're built up on lies to employees and customers to eventually be sold at greater value and gutted. That was what finance wanted to do to Yahoo for a while. They also put in place one bad leader after another with a similar philosophy that damaged the compan…

Yeah, the "stakeholders" should get rich at the expense of the people that actually OWN the company. I'd love to see the innovation that would happen if this were implemented at scale.

>She tried with an impressive effort

That's one way to view it. I'd say it was a pretty expensive, unimpressive effort.

>rather they had listen to finance people

Uh, you realize that it's also "finance people" that have been standing behind Amazons rise as well, right? Just because you read a couple of articles on HN about activists wanting to see profits, in no way does that represent all "finance people". Amazon has a lot of shareholders. Like it or not, "finance people" aren't some homogeneous group of self interested, greedy trolls.

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

#292

Post by carlosonunez »

henrikschroder wrote: post #196
anotherhacker wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> "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.

I wouldn't be so sure. I love a good conference. I don't care much for the content, but the networking opportunities are great. I mostly do trainings to build my "Rolodex;" I feel that this will only help me when I decide on starting my own business (I want to sell something that other businesses will use, and knowing someone inside of a business >>>> cold calling)

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

#293

Post by carlosonunez »

fma wrote: post #252
henrikschroder wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously, if you've ever worked at a large company in SV, you should know that the "lavish parties" thing was a completely envy-driven red herring. If you do the math you realize that the holiday party cost a few hundred bucks per attending employee. Compared to other large SV companies - that are not under fire in the press - this was a cheap holiday party.

I don't work for a large company in SV, but do work for a large company of a market cap of almost 50 billion (larger than Yahoo). We had record profits last quarter. Our market is growing. And we don't get jack squat for perks. We come in, work, go home. No holiday parties. Not even free coffee. I used to complain...actually still do. But, that's the expectation now. Hope it improves, but not holding my breath. On th…

I worked at companies with all of the perks, and I've worked at companies with almost none. While I'd much rather prefer higher cash compensation over workplace perks, I'd be more likely to stay longer at a place that had a few creature comforts.

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

#294

Post by carlosonunez »

cballard wrote: post #215
jqm wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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......

Company Christmas party = another night that I can't spend with my girlfriend, lifting or climbing at the gym, reading, working on open source... and anything else that isn't hanging out with increasingly intoxicated people.

Do they force you to go? Every company I've ever worked at had optional parties.

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

#295

Post by fma »

carlosonunez wrote: post #293
fma wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't work for a large company in SV, but do work for a large company of a market cap of almost 50 billion (larger than Yahoo). We had record profits last quarter. Our market is growing. And we don't get jack squat for perks. We come in, work, go home. No holiday parties. Not even free coffee. I used to complain...actually still do. But, that's the expectation now. Hope it improves, but not holding my breath. On th…

I worked at companies with all of the perks, and I've worked at companies with almost none. While I'd much rather prefer higher cash compensation over workplace perks, I'd be more likely to stay longer at a place that had a few creature comforts.

Yes I agree...it increases morale and team building. I actually wouldn't mind if the company took $500 out of my paycheck and have a 'fun' fund for perks. But I would imagine not all my coworkers share the same view. Also I think some is up to our local managers.

For example we just had a 5 day architecture design workshop...people from different parts of the US flew in to participate. So that's flight, hotel, rental car, meals, etc.

However we only got breakfast one day, and no lunch. To me it makes sense to provide food to get people to come in early and have light discussions over food. Make more use of everyone's time.

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

#296

Post by HelloNurse »

henrikschroder wrote: post #180
anotherhacker wrote: post #165

Earlier 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…

If I were a "survivor", I would still rush to find a job elsewhere ASAP, while I'm still competing with the early round of layoffs (mostly below average) rather than with everybody else (the "best and brightest"). What's the point of waiting until the situation gets worse?

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

#297

Post by nickpsecurity »

forgetsusername wrote: post #291
nickpsecurity wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on one's goal and perspective. Finance people's goal is to squeeze money out of an investment. This is why most companies in Silicon Valley wont stay: they're built up on lies to employees and customers to eventually be sold at greater value and gutted. That was what finance wanted to do to Yahoo for a while. They also put in place one bad leader after another with a similar philosophy that damaged the compan…

Yeah, the "stakeholders" should get rich at the expense of the people that actually OWN the company. I'd love to see the innovation that would happen if this were implemented at scale. > She tried with an impressive effort That's one way to view it. I'd say it was a pretty expensive, unimpressive effort. > rather they had listen to finance people Uh, you realize that it's also "finance people" that have been standing…

Yeah, the "stakeholders" should get rich at the expense of the people that actually OWN the company."

Look up Publix or Costco for an example of stakeholder model working in low margin industries. Probably could work in high margin tech.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/briansolomon/2013/07/24/the-wal-...

"That's one way to view it. I'd say it was a pretty expensive, unimpressive effort."

Feel free to offer a different set of recommendations that would've turned it around..

"Just because you read a couple of articles on HN about activists wanting to see profits"

Just discovered HN recently. Try most articles in the media and finance people they interviewed. People were either impressed with their consumer value or talking about how they were a failed business in the making. Rarely saw an exception when the name came up.

Could've been some media bias that made it appear one way while real opinion of investors was different.

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

#298

Post by username223 »

skuhn wrote: post #286
username223 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They still do have 400 million email users, and email users are loathe to change, so that business is probably safe for a while. I'm one of them, and Yahoo makes precisely zero dollars from me -- they've been a free IMAP server for almost 20 years. It will be a huge PITA when they die and I have to tell a bunch of people to update their address books. I wish there were a way for me to pay them a few bucks to host m…

You could pay them $50 a year for your e-mail: https://help.yahoo.com/kb/SLN15967.html Doesn't seem worth it to me, but it isn't that expensive in the grand scheme of things. If it makes you feel better about paying them, at least circa 2012, only users on paid mail farms had their mail data backed up. Everyone else's mail was not ever backed up (although each farm has a dedicated Netapp Filer which provides operatio…

Thanks for the link. $50/yr is overpriced for IMAP hosting, but it's good to know that they at least offer the service.

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

#299

Post by anotherhacker »

henrikschroder wrote: post #196
anotherhacker wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I believe your distorting my original point, pouring your own prejudices into what I said, or I didn't explain myself very well. (Probably the last one)

Instead, I'll just point you to Deming's work on management. He transformed Japan's post war economy into the powerhouse it is today. He's also responsible for the much of the transformation here in the USA during the 1980'ss & 90's.

Long story short: it's the goal of management to make workers successful. Re-training is the absolute best way of advancing the company.

https://www.deming.org/theman/theories/fourteenpoints

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

#300

Post by anotherhacker »

discardorama wrote: post #255
anotherhacker wrote: post #165

Earlier 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...

I was at Yahoo when Carol Bartz came in and did exactly that. And guess what? Morale plummeted. "The beatings will continue until the morale improves" .... ever heard of that?

Do you have a reference to that? I can't find any evidence that Carlo Bartz engaged in any retraining of employees.

Again, I'm not suggesting cost cutting. I'm suggesting a move from frivolous expenses, to those which help make the employees more successful.

As I commented before, Deming was all about training employees over firing them.

https://www.deming.org/theman/theories/fourteenpoints

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