Major layoffs at yahoo (20%)? | Hacker News Reader

Major layoffs at yahoo (20%)?

alleyinsider.com

35 pointsjohnrob18 comments

I work at Yahoo!, and I really hope this rumor is true. There is a lot of dead wood, and even more VP level employees that really don't contribute to the bottom line. I know this, others know this, and Jerry knows this. Its just a matter of seeing if he has the intestinal fortitude to do the needful.

The article says: The "list" is reportedly the product of a Q4 project in which all group heads were asked to look at redundancies and create their own lists of potential cuts. All the group-level lists have now been turned in to corporate.

There is a lot of dead wood, and even more VP level employees that really don't contribute to the bottom line.

It doesn't sound like this is how you get rid of VP-level dead wood, or am I wrong?

"CEO Jerry Yang will reportedly make the decision to go forward with these layoffs--or not--next week."

English usage question: could that be reworded as "CEO Jerry Yang will decide whether to make these layoffs next week"?

I am not going to answer your English usage question here on the public forum because there is no sense in posting something many people will read for the benefit of a single person, and there is no contact information in your profile.

Sheez... I disagree with hollerith too, as it's not really that big a deal to have some off topic conversation like that (that might benefit other non-native speakers), but there's no need to vote people down so much for the occasional sub-par comment, unless it's really beyond the pale or the person is a troll - neither of which is true in this case.

Tough crowd.

Yes.

Your English usage is better than the author's.

No, it couldn't - your rewording loses the critical "reportedly" that lets the reader know that this is a rumor, not fact. I am not a reporter, and don't know the threshold for libel, but for a rumor you definitely want to write that, just like newspapers always use "the alledged criminal" before the trial is over.

This is a quick fix to address short term profitability and stock price. If I were a stockholder, I'd be asking the bigger questions like what markets will yahoo be in in 5 years. The battle lines are being drawn now. What will differentiate yahoo from the googles, microsofts, amazons, and ebays of the world? I wish I knew.

Your right, it's a quick fix. If they don't raise the value of their stock there will be no difference between them and another company as that company will have bought them ;)

20% is a lot of layoffs. However, I don't view them with the same stigma of VCs firing founders. Firing is a part of business.

Firing people doesn't necessarily make you evil. Especially if you aim at marketing. If you cut down on the HR when you're done with the layoffs, you get extra points.

A few years back I heard from a friend at a dotcom that they had their payroll person work overtime to get the payroll out of the way so that they could lay off most of the people with short notice.

Then after she finished writing everyone else's check she was told to write one for herself. Ouch.

That is very Ouch.

It is amazing that Yahoo has yet to copy Adsense, I mean they know is giving billons to Google, and you wait years and have not even complete a decent copy of it???

http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/

http://publisher.yahoo.com/index.php

It is not even international.

http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/int.php

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