Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Yahoo employees: Get out now before the vultures descend

itworld.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 111 posts

Re: Yahoo employees: Get out now before the vultures descend

#91

Post by thurn »

socratic wrote: post #69

It's weird to see Y! get a lot of hate on HN, because it seems like working there would be a lot like working at a startup. You're trading off risk (will this company exist in n years) for reward (higher salary, greater control over job responsibilities). The best Y! employees also probably have a ton of visibility, working on projects like Hadoop, YUI, YQL, and so on. What's wrong with this analogy?

Well, working at a startup is rewarding because you have a small team of peers, very little bureaucracy or management overhead, no legacy to deal with, etc. I don't think the analogy addresses the core reasons why you'd pick a startup.

Re: Yahoo employees: Get out now before the vultures descend

#93

Post by ramiyer »

cbs wrote: post #55
sriramk wrote: post #46

Honestly, I find this article ridiculous and borderline offensive. I would love if the author would come talk to a few of us and maybe take a tour of the place and see what makes this place work. I work at Yahoo, joined a few months ago, run engineering management for a couple of teams working on high-performance cloud stuff very core to the way Yahoo works. I find the engineers sharp and smart, the technology proble…

>Honestly, I find this article ridiculous and borderline offensive. Don't take it seriously, the *-world writers are habitually underinformed about the topics they write on. I don't read them much, but every time I see them posted to HN, on topics I have even a casual understanding of, I can spot the factual errors. I wouldn't give any stock to their analysis of the current situation over at Yahoo.

+1

Re: Yahoo employees: Get out now before the vultures descend

#94

Post by [deleted] »

guelo wrote: post #84
jpdoctor wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> None of that is going to change unless something really dramatic happens. LBO's and their ilk are dramatic. One restructuring guy I know would have a goal of eliminating all but 3 managers from an acquired group of 300 within 6 months.

Yea expect the unexpected with those guys. They are creative at wringing out cash right now with no thought to the future or any wishy-washy stuff like morale, culture, history, etc. I've seen 90% of employees fired and the rest relocated a thousand miles away just so they could get the cash out of selling an office building.

[deleted]

Re: Yahoo employees: Get out now before the vultures descend

#95

Post by rphlx »

tomkarlo wrote: post #88
czhiddy wrote: post #19

I'm curious - can someone explain to me how Yahoo still has a higher P/E ratio than say, Apple? For that matter, why is EBay's P/E higher than Google's?

Market cap of $18, assets on balance sheet of $15 bn... some portion of that value may be breakup / liquidation value. In theory, a company is worth the greater of its future earnings (hence P/E) or it's liquidation value. (This assumes they're rational enough to break it up if that value is greater.) So in theory, Yahoo's earnings could go to zero, and it would still be worth $15bn because you could liquidate the as…

Well, non-cash Assets are often valued way above the firesale price they'd fetch in a rapid liquidation. The $4B in goodwill is not easy to extract.

Re: Yahoo employees: Get out now before the vultures descend

#96

Post by tomkarlo »

rphlx wrote: post #95
tomkarlo wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Market cap of $18, assets on balance sheet of $15 bn... some portion of that value may be breakup / liquidation value. In theory, a company is worth the greater of its future earnings (hence P/E) or it's liquidation value. (This assumes they're rational enough to break it up if that value is greater.) So in theory, Yahoo's earnings could go to zero, and it would still be worth $15bn because you could liquidate the as…

Well, non-cash Assets are often valued way above the firesale price they'd fetch in a rapid liquidation. The $4B in goodwill is not easy to extract.

True, but they have significant investments outside of their own business that would likely hold value, plus the assets on balance sheet don't include any patents, etc. that they own and might have standalone value. I'm just saying that's why the P/E will tend to float higher than you'd expect on the comps alone when you get down to certain market caps.

Re: Yahoo employees: Get out now before the vultures descend

#97

Post by drgath »

sandieman wrote: post #85
sriramk wrote: post #46

Honestly, I find this article ridiculous and borderline offensive. I would love if the author would come talk to a few of us and maybe take a tour of the place and see what makes this place work. I work at Yahoo, joined a few months ago, run engineering management for a couple of teams working on high-performance cloud stuff very core to the way Yahoo works. I find the engineers sharp and smart, the technology proble…

Do you still have yellow and purple cubicles?

Yup! They look like this, http://www.flickr.com/photos/mmhmm/1753309475/

Re: Yahoo employees: Get out now before the vultures descend

#98

Post by drgath »

linguaphobe wrote: post #78
dpark wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Carol Bartz was a disaster, she did the worst thing any CEO could ever do, which is to wreck the culture that pervaded Yahoo!. Sorry, but what culture do you believe Bartz destroyed? I was at Yahoo before Bartz, and left only about a month before she was fired. I don't believe that Bartz destroyed anything. Yahoo has never had a great culture. They've always had an identity crisis. You can go read PG's older essays…

One thing off the top of my head: she ended the year-end parties. Those parties were great, because they brought lots of people together, and for one night, you forgot everything else and enjoyed yourself, with your spouse/s.o./friend . It was fun to see geeks bathe, shave and dress up for this yearly event.... ;-) I keed, I keed about the bathing. :-)

"Culture" is defined by parties? I think you are confusing "culture" and "perks". I love the culture at Yahoo.

Re: Yahoo employees: Get out now before the vultures descend

#99

Post by drgath »

parfe wrote: post #11
brador wrote: post #4

With a fresh top level CEO, could Yahoo survive?

What would Yahoo have to do for you for it to get your business? http://everything.yahoo.com/ Take a look at all the services yahoo offers. Has anyone ever sent you a "Yahoo Video" link? I didn't even know it existed until just now. And the prominent video on the main page is "Jazz for Cows" which I can't get a direct link for to paste here . Yahoo only offers me the option to embed it. It's fun enough I want to send…

> About the only near-market leader Yahoo controls is Flickr

#1 US properties - Y! News - Y! Sports - Y! Finance - OMG - Y! Mail - Homepage (for portals)

And probably some others I don't know of.

Post reply on HN