

Yahoo employees: Get out now before the vultures descend - jfruh
http://www.itworld.com/software/204139/now-would-be-excellent-time-yahoo-employees-jump-ship

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sriramk
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 problems
fascinating (insane scale/perf requirements) and in general, look forward to
getting up and driving to Sunnyvale every morning.

None of that is going to change unless something really dramatic happens.

P.S We're hiring. :) If any of you want to work on a platform serving a
ridiculous (and I do mean ridiculous) number of requests and users, hacking on
cutting-edge distributed programming work, send me email (address on my
profile).

~~~
lpgauth
Do you guys use erlang anywhere in that stack?

~~~
sriramk
Nope. But we have our own constructs for a lot of the semantics Erlang
provides written from the ground up in C/C++. Sorry, can't talk about it more
except in broad strokes :)

~~~
Luyt
Apache Traffic Server?

~~~
sriramk
Nope, this is not public. Traffic server ( and the stuff it lead to) is built
by a peer group under the same VP I report to.

~~~
Luyt
I see. I asked because I recently listened to FLOSS Weekly's "Apache Traffic
Server" episode featuring some Yahoos who were involved with it from its
beginnings, and which is apparently used heavily within the Yahoo
infrastructure.

<http://twit.cachefly.net/floss0179.mp3>

 _"We talk about the Apache Traffic Server, a proxy server that you probably
don't realize you are already using.

Guests: Leif Hedstrom and Bryan Call"_

------
uncertain
I was given a very good job offer from Yahoo around the same time Carol Bartz
was fired. I have yet to sign anything yet because of what I've been reading
about Yahoo's condition. I get the feeling that most of the news about Yahoo's
demise are just being sensational, yet at the same time I can't ignore the
fact that Yahoo employees have been leaving the company every other week
(according to my friends who have worked there).

My worst fear is relocating and then being totally screwed over. I don't know
what to do.

~~~
pavel_lishin
Where would you relocate to? I'm assuming that if Yahoo gave you a good job
offer, you'd be able to find other employment in the area without too much
problem.

~~~
uncertain
Santa Clara, CA. I'm just worried that if I move out there I'll be left
hanging while I have expenses to keep up with.

~~~
jrockway
Ask for a signing bonus of n months expenses (where n is how long you think it
will take to find a job), and then put that in a savings account. Problem
sovled. And if Yahoo ends up being okay, you have a big chunk of money you can
apply to the down payment of a house (or fund a team of pro bike racers, or
wahtever).

~~~
linguaphobe
This is the best option. If you're good, then you can easily get a job very
quickly in today's conditions. So a signing bonus, of, say, 3 months salary is
ample.

Also: Yahoo is known for _very_ generous severance benefits. Typically you'll
get 3-4 months of salary.

So if you're even half-way decent, you should be OK.

------
bryanlarsen
If vultures are descending, I would think it would be better to wait. The
bidding war will temporarily bump up your stock price & options, giving you a
better time to sell them. Then the vultures will offer buy-outs to encourage
employees to leave. I doubt the vultures will be overly generous in their buy-
outs but it can still amount to a substantial amount of cash if you've been
there a while.

~~~
jmathai
Most people's stock options are so underwater they're eternally worthless. An
increase of a few bucks in the stock price isn't worth the cost on your
morale.

~~~
linguaphobe
How's your open-source Flickr coming along, man?

// sorry, using a throw-away account..

------
0x12
Funny, this article seems to be written by one of those vultures.

People that don't work at Yahoo! telling people that work there to quit remind
me of the pope telling other people to abstain from sex. If you're not playing
the game don't tell others how to play it or to stop playing it.

Yahoo! has had a rough time but it still has plenty of life in it, let's wait
to see what they intend to do once they've found their new bearings.

Carol Bartz was a disaster, she did the worst thing any CEO could ever do,
which is to wreck the culture that pervaded Yahoo!. Now it is up to new people
to try to restore that culture or at least a semblance of it and then possibly
the oil tanker can be turned around. It isn't over until the fat lady sings.

Yahoo! is huge, has a pile of interesting tech, lacks polish and needs focus.
If Apple could be turned around then so can Yahoo.

~~~
dpark
> _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 and see that.

Bartz was fired because she couldn't work a miracle. Yahoo needs some truly
amazing changes in order to avoid Sun's fate, and I'm not sure anyone out
there can/will deliver what's needed quickly enough. You mentioned Apple as a
turnaround example. Exactly where do you think Yahoo is going to get a Steve
Jobs?

~~~
linguaphobe
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. :-)

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

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czhiddy
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?

~~~
tdurden
Asian assets are a very large part of the 'P'

~~~
w1ntermute
Yahoo! is only a minority shareholder in Yahoo! Japan, with SoftBank owning
40+% of the shares.

~~~
tdurden
Yahoo! owns over 40% of Alibaba which is a multibillion dollar company. I have
seen valuations over 30B, but these are rough estimates since it is not
public.

------
brackin
I don't like the idea of a writer telling people to quit their jobs with
little first hand knowledge. If they like working for Yahoo they should stay
till they can get the severance package or continue working there.

Afterwards you probably have some savvy friends you could convince to join you
on making your own future, in the form of a startup.

------
socratic
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?

~~~
thurn
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.

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byrneseyeview
This article is based on a false premise. The effect of LBOs on job creation
is ambiguous:

<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1034178>

Silver Lake, in particular, is more of a growth equity firm that happens to
use debt.

(I work at, but by no means speak for, Yahoo.

~~~
barry-cotter
What happened to DDD?

------
ww520
Anyone still owns YHOO stocks? Got some at around 13 after the collapse of
Microsoft buyout. The book value was/is good. Was hoping there's another
acquisition.

------
brador
With a fresh top level CEO, could Yahoo survive?

~~~
parfe
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 it to my friend who plays
in a local orchestra, but Yahoo is not concerned with the organic spread of
links. <http://video.yahoo.com/>

It isn't just youtube Yahoo competes poorly with. Craigslist, Gmail, ESPN,
every news site on the internet.

Just take a look at their "security" offering <http://security.yahoo.com/>

Paragraphs of copywriting but no product to download or install. Click
"Protect your PC" it's just more words. Lots of words. Someone at Yahoo took
the time to create this page _for what purpose?_ There is no direction
whatsoever.

Their primary search function is powered by Bing now too. About the only near-
market leader Yahoo controls is Flickr and that's only because pros like it
over Facebook.

Yahoo! became the bitbucket to store second rate implementations of every idea
the internet has ever had, and they aren't cutting the cruft loose, or
differentiating on the products that are quality.

In fact, take a look at their mobile offering.
[http://m.yahoo.com/w/sports/ncaaf/teams/ncaaf.i-a.2?.ts=1316...](http://m.yahoo.com/w/sports/ncaaf/teams/ncaaf.i-a.2?.ts=1316199330&.intl=us&.lang=en)

That's the Big East Team list for College Football. It's not standings. It
doesn't show records. Some project manager at Yahoo accessed the mobile sports
site and either didn't care enough to say "Why can't I see the standings?" or
didn't know enough about sports to care about standings. Why does Yahoo! have
someone like that in charge of the mobile sports division (If they even have
someone in a leadership position anywhere close to such a segment). Someone
thought displaying 8 teams in alphabetical order was good usability.

~~~
simonbrown
> Yahoo only offers me the option to embed it.

Clicking the up arrow icon provides me a URL along with an embed link. Or you
could just copy it from your browser's URL bar.

~~~
parfe
It appears that the promoted/lead video displayed at <http://video.yahoo.com>
does NOT have a link field in the up arrow menu.

Once you find a video's specific page the same video has a link available. At
least on ubuntu with flash 11,0,1,129 installed.

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shoham
Really sad article -- I'd love to see Yahoo turn it around. It's an amazing
company, in many ways.

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jpdoctor
Anyone have a mirror or cache link?

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Hisoka
Wouldn't it be wiser to wait until you see if you get fired, so you get the
severance package? And if you don't, then get out?

~~~
spydum
By then the market may be saturated with your former co-workers..

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wavephorm
I remember this type of Schadenfreude during the tech collapse in 2000. People
seemed to just love hearing about other people losing their jobs. This
editorial certainly has undertones of wanting to accelerate the collapse of
Yahoo.

Be careful what you wish for.

------
cHalgan
If Yahoo! is acquired by AOL, then I think there might be some bright future
for Yahoo! and for AOL.

For example, they could focus on Yahoo! Finance to be the place for
investment, stocks info on internet.

In order words, it is too early to predict whether Yahoo! will be sold to PE
firms.

EDIT: Stupid comment: AOL is way smaller than Yahoo!

~~~
namityadav
_If Yahoo! is acquired by AOL_

Yahoo's market cap: $18.91B

AOL's market cap: $1.5B

~~~
cHalgan
Stupid me. I was honestly thinking that AOL's market cap is about 20B. Wow...

------
vbtemp
I don't understand why Yahoo still exists (or at least why it still gets so
much coverage). At this point it's just a cheap knockoff of everything google
does. Has anyone ever used Yahoo mail? It's a POS, it's bloated, slow, prone
to failure - and it doesn't even work on linux. Same thing for yahoo maps,
news, search, etc. I just don't get it.

~~~
pork
A sinking ship still has momentum.

~~~
frou_dh
I'd have gone with derailing train.

~~~
cpeterso
And that's a lot of momentum!

