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Oh just give this poor old dog the old Yeller treatment already. I don't know what's more sad, the fact that Yahoo has fallen from where it once was, or that it

Oh just give this poor old dog the old Yeller treatment already. I don't know what's more sad, the fact that Yahoo has fallen from where it once was, or that it's falling so slowly and that it's new CEO, once thought to be it's saving grace, is letting the bleeding continue for seemingly as long as she possibly can. I can't imagine the morale issues in the trenches of Yahoo, it's gotta be just horrible in there.

mattlutze 11y ago
As a sidebar, I've always kinda felt the name gets in the way. Yahoo! I feel silly saying it. I feel silly asking someone if they Yahoo!? It feels silly seeing it on stock tickers. Do I want to invest in a silly business? Work for a silly business? The answers are yes and yes in an objective world, if the company is producing interesting products that are selling. But when it comes to marketing to users, investors and future employees alike, I'm not so sure it isn't a small hurdle in the way of that conversation.
- jeffwass 11y ago
  Interesting comment, but does sample size of 1 mean times have changed? I remember reading a tech trade rag back in the late 90's where some consulting company or other was talking about their business. They were getting tons of requests to help provide branding and corporate identity for tech clients. Apparently "Yahoo" was the gold standard, and everybody and their cousin wanted a name or trademark or other branding component akin to Yahoo.
- morgante 11y ago
  As opposed to Google, which has a super staid and boring name.
  - morinted 11y ago
    At least Google doesn't have a sound bite of yodelling.
    - talmand 11y ago
      And it works nicely as a verb.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- coldtea 11y ago
  >Yahoo! I feel silly saying it. I feel silly asking someone if they Yahoo!? Yeah, nothing like the gravitas and seriousness of Google.
  - SteveNuts 11y ago
    "Google it" rolls off the tongue a lot better than "Yahoo it". Plus with Google's minimalist design (at least in the early years) they can get away with the silly name.
    - coldtea 11y ago
      All those are after the fact explanations. When Yahoo! ruled the web -- and I was there for those years back in the mid-late nineties when it was as big as Google is now -- the name clearly wasn't a problem.
  - mattlutze 11y ago
    It doesn't need gravitas. But the onomatopoeic and just-slightly-this-side-from-awkward feeling of it has always bugged me a little.
- FussyZeus 11y ago
  The old ads were great, from the early 00s? Always ended with the dude screaming YaaahooooOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Memories.
  - aswanson 11y ago
    I always hated those ads and also thought the name was silly, even at the time. But hey, they're still here.
    - wavefunction 11y ago
      The name was from a much more optimistic time in the history of the Internet, when everything was shiny and brand new and less slick and calculated.
      - FussyZeus 11y ago
        Oh please, nothing's changed. Give em a website consisting of nothing but stock photos and solid color squares and a name like Yahooify and they'd blend right in.
ep103 11y ago
I thought I read somewhere that this is a slow bleed, to allow investors more direct access to alibaba, at the expense of the rest of Yahoo!'s businesses?
coldtea 11y ago
>Oh just give this poor old dog the old Yeller treatment already. I don't know what's more sad, the fact that Yahoo has fallen from where it once was, or that it's falling so slowly and that it's new CEO, once thought to be it's saving grace, is letting the bleeding continue for seemingly as long as she possibly can. And why not? In what kind of reasoning, if you could continue to make money and employee thousands of people for 10+ years of slowly declining revenue and relevance, would you refuse it? A "hot" CEO or employee might want to jump ship ofcourse for greener pastures. But there's absolutely no sense in closing the company and leaving all the money it could make (even if declining) on the table. If it wasn't profitable, that would be another story. But it is. [edit] fixed typos.
- FussyZeus 11y ago
  I guess it makes sense to get all the jewelry and dresses off the Titanic while the bow is still above water, personally I'd sell the business while it's still worth something and move on to bigger and better things. Anyway, I'm thinking more from the perspective of the grunt workers than the big execs who will walk away rich no matter what. If I was them I'd be looking for the lifeboats and getting the hell out.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - BinaryIdiot 11y ago
    > personally I'd sell the business while it's still worth something and move on to bigger and better things. They're likely trying to do that and spinning off Japan may make that easier.
- wpietri 11y ago
  > if you could continue to make money and employee thousands of people for 10+ years of slowly declining revenue and relevance, would you refuse it? I sure would. I've seen that happen at a couple of companies where I know people and it's entirely depressing. Slowly declining revenue on the path to planned death means: * knowing that the next round of layoffs will always be soon * having a hard time retaining people * having a very hard time hiring people * nobody wanting to do deals with you * having to pay way over market to keep the people you have * workers much more inclined to negative behaviors * no sense of promise in the future I would much rather sell individual pieces to companies that can make use of particular assets, move as many people as possible to other companies, and then gracefully wind down whatever's left. In my view, profit isn't why we do things, it's just how we measure sustainability of a venture. Maybe there are people out there who would be happy working in a dying company trying to suck every last nickel of profit out. But those aren't the kind of people I'd hire on the way up, so there's no way I'd ask them to spend years being miserable on the way down. I'd also be reluctant to sell my customers to somebody who would be happy doing that; I wouldn't trust them to do right by the users.

mattlutze 11y ago

As a sidebar, I've always kinda felt the name gets in the way. Yahoo! I feel silly saying it. I feel silly asking someone if they Yahoo!? It feels silly seeing it on stock tickers. Do I want to invest in a silly business? Work for a silly business? The answers are yes and yes in an objective world, if the company is producing interesting products that are selling. But when it comes to marketing to users, investors and future employees alike, I'm not so sure it isn't a small hurdle in the way of that conversation.

jeffwass 11y ago
Interesting comment, but does sample size of 1 mean times have changed? I remember reading a tech trade rag back in the late 90's where some consulting company or other was talking about their business. They were getting tons of requests to help provide branding and corporate identity for tech clients. Apparently "Yahoo" was the gold standard, and everybody and their cousin wanted a name or trademark or other branding component akin to Yahoo.
morgante 11y ago
As opposed to Google, which has a super staid and boring name.
- morinted 11y ago
  At least Google doesn't have a sound bite of yodelling.
  - talmand 11y ago
    And it works nicely as a verb.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
coldtea 11y ago
>Yahoo! I feel silly saying it. I feel silly asking someone if they Yahoo!? Yeah, nothing like the gravitas and seriousness of Google.
- SteveNuts 11y ago
  "Google it" rolls off the tongue a lot better than "Yahoo it". Plus with Google's minimalist design (at least in the early years) they can get away with the silly name.
  - coldtea 11y ago
    All those are after the fact explanations. When Yahoo! ruled the web -- and I was there for those years back in the mid-late nineties when it was as big as Google is now -- the name clearly wasn't a problem.
- mattlutze 11y ago
  It doesn't need gravitas. But the onomatopoeic and just-slightly-this-side-from-awkward feeling of it has always bugged me a little.
FussyZeus 11y ago
The old ads were great, from the early 00s? Always ended with the dude screaming YaaahooooOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!! Memories.
- aswanson 11y ago
  I always hated those ads and also thought the name was silly, even at the time. But hey, they're still here.
  - wavefunction 11y ago
    The name was from a much more optimistic time in the history of the Internet, when everything was shiny and brand new and less slick and calculated.
    - FussyZeus 11y ago
      Oh please, nothing's changed. Give em a website consisting of nothing but stock photos and solid color squares and a name like Yahooify and they'd blend right in.

ep103 11y ago

I thought I read somewhere that this is a slow bleed, to allow investors more direct access to alibaba, at the expense of the rest of Yahoo!'s businesses?

coldtea 11y ago

>Oh just give this poor old dog the old Yeller treatment already. I don't know what's more sad, the fact that Yahoo has fallen from where it once was, or that it's falling so slowly and that it's new CEO, once thought to be it's saving grace, is letting the bleeding continue for seemingly as long as she possibly can. And why not? In what kind of reasoning, if you could continue to make money and employee thousands of people for 10+ years of slowly declining revenue and relevance, would you refuse it? A "hot" CEO or employee might want to jump ship ofcourse for greener pastures. But there's absolutely no sense in closing the company and leaving all the money it could make (even if declining) on the table. If it wasn't profitable, that would be another story. But it is. [edit] fixed typos.

FussyZeus 11y ago
I guess it makes sense to get all the jewelry and dresses off the Titanic while the bow is still above water, personally I'd sell the business while it's still worth something and move on to bigger and better things. Anyway, I'm thinking more from the perspective of the grunt workers than the big execs who will walk away rich no matter what. If I was them I'd be looking for the lifeboats and getting the hell out.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- BinaryIdiot 11y ago
  > personally I'd sell the business while it's still worth something and move on to bigger and better things. They're likely trying to do that and spinning off Japan may make that easier.
wpietri 11y ago
> if you could continue to make money and employee thousands of people for 10+ years of slowly declining revenue and relevance, would you refuse it? I sure would. I've seen that happen at a couple of companies where I know people and it's entirely depressing. Slowly declining revenue on the path to planned death means: * knowing that the next round of layoffs will always be soon * having a hard time retaining people * having a very hard time hiring people * nobody wanting to do deals with you * having to pay way over market to keep the people you have * workers much more inclined to negative behaviors * no sense of promise in the future I would much rather sell individual pieces to companies that can make use of particular assets, move as many people as possible to other companies, and then gracefully wind down whatever's left. In my view, profit isn't why we do things, it's just how we measure sustainability of a venture. Maybe there are people out there who would be happy working in a dying company trying to suck every last nickel of profit out. But those aren't the kind of people I'd hire on the way up, so there's no way I'd ask them to spend years being miserable on the way down. I'd also be reluctant to sell my customers to somebody who would be happy doing that; I wouldn't trust them to do right by the users.