Yahoo plans 10 percent layoff in product unit

[bill]

Yahoo plans 10 percent layoff in product unit [news.cnet.com]

Yahoo is indeed preparing to lay off employees, in a reduction in force that will be done in December.

But the layoffs, first reported in TechCrunch at 20 percent, will be closer to 10 percent and be almost completely centered on the product organization under Chief Product Officer Blake Irving, sources close to the situation said.
That would mean layoffs of about 650, since that part of Yahoo has about 6,500 employees.

Yahoo, in fact, just put out a statement saying the 20 percent figure was "inaccurate." Said the company in a statement: "Yahoo is always evaluating expenses to align with the company's financial goals. However, a 20 percent reduction in Yahoo's workforce across the board is misleading and inaccurate."

...

In addition, sources said, the layoffs might result in the outsourcing of some functions at the company.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

It's such a painfully slow downfall for Yahoo! One wonders why they didn't take the last buyout offer to put an end to the decline.

[micklearn]

the layoffs might result in the outsourcing of some functions at the company

I wonder what's left to outsource. Didn't their personals, real estate, jobs, search, etc., etc. all meet that fate this year?

[JAB Creations]

Outsourcing is bad business, probably why they're laying people off to save the money they lost from outsourcing.

I have a chart that clearly shows in-house created work produces the best results and that outsourced work has the worst results and security vulnerabilities.

- John

[weeks]

The brutal decline of Yahoo:
(Graphic, click to enlarge)
[ritholtz.com...]

[StoutFiles]

20% wasn't accurate, but 10%? It should be more like 50%!

People don't want an "everything" site. It's the internet, it's not like you have to hop in the car and drive to another store to get what you want. It takes 2 seconds to go to another website.

Yahoo needs to cut the fat and find something they're good at and make it better then the competition.

[ChanandlerBong]

I stopped using Yahoo in about 2002 when I decided that "if even it didn't know what it wanted to be, how would it be of any use to me?"

yahoo will not exist in 2015.

[iThink]

What are they doing with so many thousands of employees? They produce very little original content. Much of what they have is feeds from other websites chopped and mashed up to produce something masquerading as original. Yahoo movies, finance and what not, they are all using content from other sites. Search has already died and Yahoo mail has not had any real upgrade in years.

Why can't a small crew of a few hundred people run that whole company?

[dvduval]

The unemployment rate isn't too bad in the Bay Area. Hopefully, the 650 will find other jobs nearby. It's still a pagerank 9 site with a ton of traffic (granted less than before). They need to focus on a few key areas, and they could at least stop the decline. I find that often they have good sections of their site, but there is always something that makes them "not quite" as good.

1. The hosting is "not quite" as good as what can be found elsewhere
2. Yahoo Finance is "not quite" as good as Bloomberg
3. Yahoo IM is "not quite" as good as Skype

They need to do a better job of picking their battles.

[ChanandlerBong]

the problem is, they decided to fight ALL battles and have had their a$$ handed to them in pretty much every one of them.

A war on 27 fronts is never a good idea. Not even Adolf went that route.

[walkman]

Yhoo is still worth $22 Billion or the GDP of many small countries. That's way too much IMO to hold 'forever.'

Yahoo was screwed by Yang that refused to sell to MSFT, IMO. Of course being the founder he didn't want his legacy shut down by Microsoft, but shareholders owned much of the company so he did a disservice to them.

[Whitey]

still worth $22 Billion

To who ? Paper ?

[walkman]

To who ? Paper ?

[finance.yahoo.com...]

You can short the stock if you disagree :)

[Chico_Loco]

I always remember Yahoo for their chatrooms. They had them broken up by topic, so whatever you wanted to chat about, you could just stop in and discuss. I don't understand why they haven't gone the way of Facebook... with all of the Yahoo email account in use, the kind of things they could do with that is astonishing.

[Winooski]

Weeks, thanks for the infographic.

I appreciated the mention of Paul Graham's 8/2010 essay, "What Happened to Yahoo [paulgraham.com]". For those who don't know him, Graham, along with Robert Morris, was the guy who originated Viaweb, what became Yahoo! Store in '98.

Speaking as a guy who spent from early '98 to just last month working on Yahoo! Stores (migrated away from the last one, yay!), I can attest to the fact that Yahoo! dragged its feet on investing in or improving that product, to the point where it became a hinderance to business' growth. It seems clear, in retrospect, that the shabby treatment Yahoo! Store received from Yahoo! was probably being replicated across the entire company. Ah well.

[physics]

Winooski, fun fact about Paul/Yahoo Stores - Viaweb/Yahoo! Stores was originally written in Lisp :)
[paulgraham.com...]

[physics]

Nice graphic - the main message I get from that is that Yahoo's motto should be "buy high, sell low"