3 ms·

I appreciate the insight I wish stories like these could have been present in more of the discussions regarding Yahoo that I've been reading. Maybe ending telec

I appreciate the insight I wish stories like these could have been present in more of the discussions regarding Yahoo that I've been reading. Maybe ending telecommuting was the right call. But it seems to me that systemic laziness in engineering circles are not the product of location but rather the product of process, review, and so forth. Perhaps also recruitment and management were very ineffective as well.

nostrademons 10y ago
I would argue that systemic lazyness is usually the product of employees realizing that everything they do is pointless, and hence not bothering to do anything. And so Marissa's top priority at Yahoo should've been to find a reason for the company to continue to exist. Unfortunately, this is hard enough in a small startup where you need to convince 2-3 people to commit quickly to a choice of action and follow through on it, let alone a large one where you need to convince 20-30K, most of whom have already checked out. And so unfortunately, the first thing any turnaround CEO has to do is get everyone who's not committed to the company's success off the bus. (Oftentimes, you're doing them a favor anyway through this; coasting through life in the hopes that you won't be noticed is not a winning strategy long-term, and this frees them up to take other jobs where what they do actually does have a purpose.)
- yuhong 10y ago
  I still think it was probably done badly though. Using performance reviews to do this for example is probably a bad idea.
shawndumas 10y ago
I was there when it happened; it felt like the right call to me and my team. In fact none of the performance related terminations had us scratching our heads. I was a part of a startup (interClick) that got acquired before MM became CEO and our experience of the rest of the org was pockets of smart dedication drowning in a mass of serfs passively resisting the will of the fiefdoms to which they belonged. It seemed to us that what MM should have done is broken up the fiefdoms and dismiss the feudal lords that reigned before revitalizing the suite of properties and expanding mobile/video.

nostrademons 10y ago

I would argue that systemic lazyness is usually the product of employees realizing that everything they do is pointless, and hence not bothering to do anything. And so Marissa's top priority at Yahoo should've been to find a reason for the company to continue to exist. Unfortunately, this is hard enough in a small startup where you need to convince 2-3 people to commit quickly to a choice of action and follow through on it, let alone a large one where you need to convince 20-30K, most of whom have already checked out. And so unfortunately, the first thing any turnaround CEO has to do is get everyone who's not committed to the company's success off the bus. (Oftentimes, you're doing them a favor anyway through this; coasting through life in the hopes that you won't be noticed is not a winning strategy long-term, and this frees them up to take other jobs where what they do actually does have a purpose.)

yuhong 10y ago
I still think it was probably done badly though. Using performance reviews to do this for example is probably a bad idea.

shawndumas 10y ago

I was there when it happened; it felt like the right call to me and my team. In fact none of the performance related terminations had us scratching our heads. I was a part of a startup (interClick) that got acquired before MM became CEO and our experience of the rest of the org was pockets of smart dedication drowning in a mass of serfs passively resisting the will of the fiefdoms to which they belonged. It seemed to us that what MM should have done is broken up the fiefdoms and dismiss the feudal lords that reigned before revitalizing the suite of properties and expanding mobile/video.