Just Got Fired From Yahoo? Have A Taco.

I think you have a valid point that Yahoo! is probably not laying off their top performers. However, the job cuts were large, and there is enough randomness in the HR process to assume that the startup could find 5 good employees there. Not to mention, an employee in the bottom half at Yahoo would probably be an excellent employee anywhere else. Also, there are factors other than competence that play in to decisions like these, like tenure.

In situations like this, a lot of times a whole team gets cut. For example I think they mentioned the entire Yahoo Toolbar and Yahoo Finance teams in the U.S. were being laid off. That isn't a reflection on the skills of those engineers so much as recognizing that these products aren't mission-critical.

Also, if you have to fire people, often it's easier to fire people who are more recent additions to the team, even if they are more skilled. It has less of a social impact on the rest of the company, and you lose less institutional knowledge.

In short, there are plenty of reasons to believe there are great engineers being let go. Let's stay classy.