Hacker News Reader

Comment by xyahoo | Hacker News Reader

Yahoo has over 18,000 employees (and not 14,000). The extra 4,000+ are contractors. This is a scheme that the bureaucrats at Yahoo figured out pretty early: announce layoffs, and then bring the employees back as contractors. "win-win for everyone", they joke.

I really, really hate to see people get laid off; But this was a long time coming. As an ex-Yahoo, I hope they cut out the thick layer of bureacracy thats sucking the oxygen out of that place. Ever seen the algae that suffocates a pond? The middle managers there are like that algae. And then there the VPs: at last count Yahoo had over 200 VPs. Really, What do these fuckers do!?

If Yahoo can become more engineering-centric, it has a chance. If the middle managers (and VPs) win out, stick a fork in it; theres no hope.

View on HN

>And then there the VPs: at last count Yahoo had over 200 VPs. Really, What do these fuckers do!?

These folks simply have goofy titles.

I used to have one of the world's largest banks (by AUM) as a client. They had over 200 "Vice Presidents" in one building, as it basically was their preferred title for "manager".

At Bank of America, VP was one title below most managers. VP basically meant "didn't get completely fucked in the offer negotiation process".

Bank VP is a different situation, most branches can not issues loans without a VP present- so there are many people with such title. There is standard and there no confusion that this is a high title in banking. Other titles like "Executive VP" are used to identify actual officers. That being said- I would still be interested in hearing if everybody at Yahoo is a director and/or a VP.

>Bank VP is a different situation Not in investment banks, which have no retail presence at all.

Weird. When were you there? I was at BofA securities via the merger.

"The only thing we learn from history is that we never learn from history." -Hegel

See Research In Motion (RIM).

That's got to be bogus. How likely is it that Hegel said anything so succinct?

I was curious too, and tracked it down to this. Only slightly more verbose than the quote!

But what experience and history teach is this, - that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hi/his...

Excellent! Thanks. Interestingly, Hegel's argument is opposite to what the other quote says. The other quote implies that we could learn from history if we bothered, but we don't bother, so we never learn. At least that's how I read it. But Hegel's saying that people always try to learn from history and we should stop trying because it's impossible:

Rulers, Statesmen, Nations, are wont to be emphatically commended to the teaching which experience offers in history. But what experience and history teach is this, - that peoples and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. Each period is involved in such peculiar circumstances, exhibits a condition of things so strictly idiosyncratic, that its conduct must be regulated by considerations connected with itself, and itself alone. Amid the pressure of great events, a general principle gives no help. It is useless to revert to similar circumstances in the Past.

Was there a culture at Yahoo that indicates that it would do the unusual: fire middle managers before firing the rank-and-file engineers?

The managers always survived layoffs; the engineers, not so much. Has that changed now? probably current Yahoos can tell, but I imagine there a bit busy right now to post on HN.

it looks like it might have

During college I worked at a Midwestern regional supermarket, and they were employing similar tactics. No more full-time employees. Full-time implies benefits. Part-time employees will work the same amount for possibly even the same wage, but it costs the company a lot less.

I completely agree with you. Long time coming. I could see this from a mile away.

Microsoft has almost 90k contractors, yes, really.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com