4 ms·

There has to be a better way to run a company... this kind of thing from so many companies world wide cannot be good for society as a whole.

eru 11y ago
Why? Releasing the workforce from an unproductive company is exactly what society needs. The opposite is zombie companies.
- voltagex_ 11y ago
  Perhaps Yahoo should have been split into smaller companies sooner. With better management, Flickr could have been Instagram.
  - toomuchtodo 11y ago
    I've been preparing to try to make an offer for Flickr in the event it goes up for sale (separate from the rest of the web business), organizing it as a benefit corp to be a long term business not to be put up for sale. It shouldn't be an Instagram. Its not a social network. Its a photo site that helps you organize/keep your photos, as well as share them (there's a difference). Just bidding my time, ear to the ground.
    - tamana 11y ago
      Why? There are many great photography hosting services. Flickr is only special because Yahoo makes it free as a marketing gesture
      - toomuchtodo 11y ago
        Can you list one? I've found SmugMug and 500px to be significantly inferior to Flickr, which is why I'm still a Pro Flickr subscriber.
    - voltagex_ 11y ago
      Seriously? That's amazing.
    - jacquesm 11y ago
      Very curious about what you plan on to make it profitable.
      - toomuchtodo 11y ago
        I don't plan on making it profitable. I plan on just making it break even. It was previously profitable for Yahoo on Pro accounts alone (disclaimer: I am a pro account holder).
- tamana 11y ago
  Unproductive is not the same as unprofitable.
  - eru 11y ago
    Indeed. It's the job of a good regulatory environment to make the two coincide as much as possible. (Including a tax system that internalizes externalities. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax)
prostoalex 11y ago
Why? It's a network of Web sites with fairly generic functionality, like a content publishing system (frontpage, news, sports, tech, health), a search engine querying Bing API, Web-based email and a few other projects. If you were building such a project from scratch, would you just not get anything off the ground without hiring 12,500 full-timers first? Most likely you would. There are several structural inefficiencies to Yahoo!, most of them rely on 1990 processes in areas such as ad sales (which are still strongly salespeople-driven, try to buy a premium ad with your credit card, for example), low investment in automation and tooling, low amount of shared code across the Web properties (no common UI element library, for example, just guidelines), and structure that lends itself to hiring as many product managers as possible to coordinate all those inefficiencies across various products.

eru 11y ago

Why? Releasing the workforce from an unproductive company is exactly what society needs. The opposite is zombie companies.

voltagex_ 11y ago
Perhaps Yahoo should have been split into smaller companies sooner. With better management, Flickr could have been Instagram.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  I've been preparing to try to make an offer for Flickr in the event it goes up for sale (separate from the rest of the web business), organizing it as a benefit corp to be a long term business not to be put up for sale. It shouldn't be an Instagram. Its not a social network. Its a photo site that helps you organize/keep your photos, as well as share them (there's a difference). Just bidding my time, ear to the ground.
  - tamana 11y ago
    Why? There are many great photography hosting services. Flickr is only special because Yahoo makes it free as a marketing gesture
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      Can you list one? I've found SmugMug and 500px to be significantly inferior to Flickr, which is why I'm still a Pro Flickr subscriber.
  - voltagex_ 11y ago
    Seriously? That's amazing.
  - jacquesm 11y ago
    Very curious about what you plan on to make it profitable.
    - toomuchtodo 11y ago
      I don't plan on making it profitable. I plan on just making it break even. It was previously profitable for Yahoo on Pro accounts alone (disclaimer: I am a pro account holder).
tamana 11y ago
Unproductive is not the same as unprofitable.
- eru 11y ago
  Indeed. It's the job of a good regulatory environment to make the two coincide as much as possible. (Including a tax system that internalizes externalities. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax)

prostoalex 11y ago

Why? It's a network of Web sites with fairly generic functionality, like a content publishing system (frontpage, news, sports, tech, health), a search engine querying Bing API, Web-based email and a few other projects. If you were building such a project from scratch, would you just not get anything off the ground without hiring 12,500 full-timers first? Most likely you would. There are several structural inefficiencies to Yahoo!, most of them rely on 1990 processes in areas such as ad sales (which are still strongly salespeople-driven, try to buy a premium ad with your credit card, for example), low investment in automation and tooling, low amount of shared code across the Web properties (no common UI element library, for example, just guidelines), and structure that lends itself to hiring as many product managers as possible to coordinate all those inefficiencies across various products.