
What's Caterina Fake doing in Yahoo! - sf2007

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sf2007
I really think people like her create a lot more value when they are starting
a new company, and not when they are working for a giant like Yahoo!

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danielha
Funny you say that. She's currently leading Yahoo!'s technology development
group, and is behind their internal "startup" incubator, Brickhouse. Their
first product was Pipes, which is actually quite cool.

So the "giant" seems to agree with you there.

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nickb
No she's not. Salim Ismail is leading Brickhouse:
<http://www.techcrunch.com/2007/03/14/salim-ismail-to-head-yahoo-brickhouse/>

She'll lead 'strategy'... whatever that means. I think she'll leave very soon.
She was demoted afterall.

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JMiao
Caterina established Brickhouse at Yahoo! and hired Salim Ismail to run it.
Brickhouse, of course, is a product of her strategic role at Yahoo!

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sf2007
Don''t get me wrong - I didn't mean to say she isn't doing anything "cool".
However, the fact remains that one can be so much more innovative and nimble
in a "real" startup. Given a choice, a truly smart person would prefer to work
for a cool starup vs Yahoo! Brickhouse.

The level of motivation one has in a startup is simply not there in a public
company.

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bootload
_'... Given a choice, a truly smart person would prefer to work for a cool
starup vs Yahoo! Brickhouse. ...'_

Probably making the choice of sticking around for the stock vesting period. If
you are ever asking yourself a question about someone, especially web/software
related go to the source [0]. Here is what 'Fake' had to say not long ago
about startups v's the SoftCo's of the world ...

_'... Having worked at startups for my entire career, I had never worked at a
company larger than 100-150 people. On a normal day, we would walk around
patting ourselves on the back for how brilliant we were, how innovative, how
fast we could ship, how much attention we paid to our customers, how WE were
the rock stars and the people at those big companies? slow, dull, stupid
wankers! ...'_ [1]

and goes on to explain that innovation is happening at large companies but
needs to build a process withing the corporate framework.

_'... But then I started working at a 10,000 person company and began to
realize we weren't all that after all, the real Peter Framptons were the ones
innovating at big companies. You build something brilliant while
simultaneously serving literally billions of customers? Party on, you TRULY
rock. ...'_ [2]

So this is what Fake is up to. Working out a process within the context of a
large company to allow continual innovation. After doing a startup, waiting
for vesting and having access to working capital and authority to execute it
seems a natural progression.

Reference

[0] Katerina Fake, 'Big Companies, Small Companies, Innovation and Brickhouse'

<http://www.caterina.net/archive/001049.html>

[1] Katerina Fake, 'Big Companies, Small Companies, Innovation and
Brickhouse', Ibid.

[2] Katerina Fake, 'Big Companies, Small Companies, Innovation and
Brickhouse', Ibid.

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greendestiny
It's an interesting attitude but I think she's wrong. A big company is already
serving billions of customers so they have a lot to lose. If a big company
launches a service and its not an immediate success people will attack the
brand. Also you get a lot of exposure at an early stage and the users aren't
as sympathetic.

