A Week After Google Changes Algo, Mahalo Fires 10% of Staff • Hacker News Board

Re: A Week After Google Changes Algo, Mahalo Fires 10% of Staff

#121

Post by billmcneale » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 2:42 AM UTC

ZachPruckowski wrote: post #17

S_A_P wrote: post #13

Could someone tell me more about this Jason Calacanis fellow. He seems to be a very polarizing figure on this site. Really all I know is that he seemed to have a falling out with Michael Arrington and alot of articles seem to mention him in a slightly negative light. Is there some reason for this, and no I'm not trying to troll.

He was an early Web 1.0 entrepreneur who founded Silicon Alley Reporter (which failed) and Weblogs, Inc (which got bought out by AOL). He's sort of a "startup celebrity" in the sense that he's (a) opinionated and (b) good at getting those opinions into people's faces. He's involved in a wide range of stuff in the startup-support ecosystem, and he's also the founder of Mahalo. He describes Mahalo as "people-powered se…

These detractors seem to be on to something since Mahalo just laid off 10% of its workforce right after Google acted against content farmers.

That does say something about the content that Mahalo produces, doesn't it?

Re: A Week After Google Changes Algo, Mahalo Fires 10% of Staff

#122

Post by justinchen » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 4:50 PM UTC

YooLi wrote: post #5

justinchen wrote: post #2

I think this only the beginning of the bad news due to this algo change. There are many legitimate businesses that have been seriously impacted by traffic drops and we'll probably see many more layoffs and budget cuts.

Out of curiosity, can you name some of the legitimate businesses that were affected? I thought the algo only targeted content farms and sites that regurgitated other peoples content.

You can take a glance at this thread: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=...

Re: A Week After Google Changes Algo, Mahalo Fires 10% of Staff

#123

Post by 9999 » Thu, Mar 03, 2011, 9:15 PM UTC

ericflo wrote: post #93

staunch wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

NEGATIVE: 1) Jason and Mahalo are over. Their new strategy is very expensive and a multi-year road before it's a real business. It's a total rewrite, not a pivot by any means, if they do it well. No way Calacanis lasts a few more years at Mahalo (even if the board doesn't push him out). 2) Calacanis isn't really in charge at Mahalo AFAIK. The employees all report to Jason Rapp. Rapp and the board probably made the de…

This entire comment is predicated on the assumption that getting rich is the underlying reason entrepreneurs build businesses. I disagree with this assumption.

I believe the major assumption is actually that getting rich is the underlying reason entrepreneurs build businesses that they are not passionate about. Of course, "getting rich" could be something to be passionate about, but I don't think that precludes other sources of motivation.

Re: A Week After Google Changes Algo, Mahalo Fires 10% of Staff

#124

Post by mixmastamyk » Sun, Mar 06, 2011, 5:40 AM UTC

mixmastamyk wrote: post #55

S_A_P wrote: post #13

Could someone tell me more about this Jason Calacanis fellow. He seems to be a very polarizing figure on this site. Really all I know is that he seemed to have a falling out with Michael Arrington and alot of articles seem to mention him in a slightly negative light. Is there some reason for this, and no I'm not trying to troll.

No one kicks a dead dog.

Odd this was modded down. I think there are no Dale Carnegie fans around that understand the reference.