

Doug Cutting Leaves Yahoo for Cloudera - VonGuard
http://www.sdtimes.com/blog/post/2009/08/10/Hadoop-creator-goes-to-Cloudera.aspx
Hadoop creator leaves Yahoo! to join Hadoop startup
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thunk
Doug, cutting leaves;

"Yahoo for cloudera," the groudskeepers say.

Dawn dew burns upward -- a fine mist.

~~~
sil3ntmac
It's gotta be tough when your last name is a participle

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rjurney
Its pretty clear to many people that Cloudera is a rocket ship heading
skyward, both in terms of innovation and valuation. Working there as an early
employee means participating in the profits as the company grows, as well as
being able to focus on turning Hadoop into the kernel of the network computer
of tomorrow. As cool as Yahoo is, its not hard to see why Cloudera could lure
Cutting away.

~~~
joshu
Since when is Yahoo cool?

~~~
rjurney
Since they hired Doug, gave us Hadoop, Pig, YUI etc? Since their home page
started being a great portal for normal people? Since Yahoo Labs started
churning out the awesome? Since they've given more to FOSS than any other
company, ever?

By any standard other than 'Web 2.0 Douchebag' - Yahoo is SUPREMELY cool,
whatever you think of their long-term prospects or what might have been.

~~~
joshu
And, you know, killed a lot of good startups, wasted a lot of engineers' time,
etc.

"gave us Hadoop" -> let Doug do what he wanted.

I'm not convinced they've "given more to FOSS" - significant examples other
than Hadoop and Doug's work?

Perhaps I spent too much time inside that particular sausage factory.

Would you go work there, right now?

~~~
rjurney
I feel like YDN is pretty meaty. And yes, 'Let Doug do what he wanted and paid
him, and gave us Hadoop and Pig with great docs, along with YUI' is a pretty
strong contribution.

I've never worked there, but if I could work on a cool project - yes, I would.

You do sound like you have a unique perspective :) I've always heard nothing
but bad things about Yahoo management, and if they acquired my baby and kilt
it I'm sure I'd hate them too. Don't the cash and freedom make up for it,
somewhat?

~~~
joshu
I guess. I think the folks that pay Linus or whatever have done more for OS.
Sun's opensolaris, too. MySQL, etc too. Just by sheer weight of code.

The problem is that the number of cool projects is pretty minimal. They're in
duck and cover mode. They'll get pushed to trim employees further and further
to stretch the revenues out.

I wish I had not sold it to them. The cash and freedom do not even come close;
I would rather work on a big, popular product.

~~~
keefe
Can't you work on anything you want now that you have the money? If you hadn't
sold and some catastrophe struck you, what then? I'm sitting here counting out
months of savings and wondering if I'll be able to build what I want to build
before debt and daily life grinds me down.

~~~
SwellJoe
He wasn't broke before the acquisition. A really successful product means you
kinda get to do what you want whether you get an "exit" or not. Sure, the big
cashout means you can go on a long vacation or something...but how many of us
are in it for a long vacation? If I were to sell my company today, I would be
thinking about what my next business would be by tomorrow.

~~~
keefe
A really successful product is not guaranteed to remain so, but cash remains
cash. I speculate that if yahoo was going to get into social bookmarking then
if he hadn't sold, they'd have picked up somebody else and the competitive
landscape changes drastically. To me, the big cashout means an opportunity to
work on bigger projects. The personal financials are of course the most
important factor. If I had a few million or a fat trust fund, I agree selling
only makes sense if I figure I am getting a very good price.

------
sachinag
If Mike Olson wanted to hire me to sweep floors and wash dishes, I would.
(Former banking client; the best combo of tech smarts and people skills I've
ever seen.)

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zandorg
Is it true that when an Internet company stops growing, people jump to the
newest big-growth company (for reasons of stock options)? Like Microsoft to
Google, and Google to _whoever_?

~~~
kragen
Yes. Facebook is the whoever.

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sorme
JOSHUA!!!!!

The gall. Seriously.

"Thus did Schachter come to believe that the deal was what was best for
Del.icio.us. And it's pretty good for him too. If reports of a price north of
$30 million are accurate, the acquisition puts his net worth (on paper) at
more than $15 million." ( <http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/busine..>.
)

Yahoo sets this little brat up for life and he has the audacity to talk about
them as a "sausage factory?" Frankly, I think Yahoo has done a good job with
Delicious BECAUSE they have tinkered with it so little. And what they HAVE
done with the UI is a vast improvement. Remember all the worry when Yahoo
bought Flickr? Most Flickr users say it's far better and more stable than
ever. I just have problems with his taking the kind of money from this company
like he did and then turn around in 4 years and bitch and moan and say he
wished he hadn't sold. Does _anybody_ here REALLY believe that? Put him back
in his old apartment surviving on Mac 'n Cheese without the luxury home,
trips, cars, gifts to family, etc. and see how badly he wished he would never
have sold.

Shame, Josh Schachter, shame.

~~~
mikeindustries
Did you really just call someone you've never met before -- who created a
service you seem to enjoy -- a little brat? People who create great products
which get acquired do not get "set up" by their acquirer. The cash they earn
is often in exchange for giving up full control over the product's destiny.
That is what happened here, and you can certainly argue whether or not
Delicious is better or worse off for being underneath Yahoo, but it's foolish
of you to try and divine how truthful you think Josh is being, merely because
you may trade the best thing _you've_ ever created for $15 million.

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VonGuard
Every day, I seem to have a new "revelation" for how "you could use Hadoop for
that."

Either I am retarded, or there's an awful lot of standard BS that Hadoop
fixes.

~~~
rjurney
Any problem you want to throw a lot of computers at, its now pretty easy to do
that.

Kinda a big deal, yeah. Major changes coming to computing in general as new
opportunities present themselves.

