5 ms·

Yeah, I think pg was way off on that one.

dasil003 16y ago
Could it be that pg's observations about how things were in '98 were realized at Yahoo around 2003 when Google ate their lunch and all the easy money was gone and they've since adjusted?
- dotcoma 16y ago
  probably not. Look at who's CEO. And at how many smart people have left, from the Founders of Flickr and del.icio.us to Jeremy Zawodny and many many more...
  - ojbyrne 16y ago
    I'd bet vastly more people have left Google (in both absolute and relative terms). Employees at both companies would have plenty of opportunities if they leave and little upward mobility if they stayed. Paul Bucheit, Evan Williams, that same founder of del.icio.us and many many more too.
    - yurylifshits 16y ago
      More founders leave Yahoo than Google Many founders of Google-acquired companies are still there (Youtube, Maps, ...) Out of all companies acquired by Yahoo only founders of most recent acquisitions are still there.
      - deleted 16y ago
        [deleted]
      - ojbyrne 16y ago
        Citation?
        yurylifshits 16y ago
        List of acquisitions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Yahoo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Yahoo! Founders can be found through CrunchBase Founders current status can be checked at LinkedIn I know, it is a lot of work :) Some cases where I am sure: Zimbra, Yahoo Groups, Flickr, Delicious
- lsc 16y ago
  It's also possible that PG talked to executives... and executives everywhere seem like idiots to hackers. I've met technical founders who were really sharp who listened and tried to emulate their business-focused partners to the point where they came off as kind of dumb to me. I watched this happen to one guy who was, by all appearances, smarter than I am at the beginning. (Of course, he may still have been making good decisions; he certainly made plenty of cash; they just looked like stupid decisions to me, and, well, I ain't rich yet, so maybe he was on to something.)
- kscaldef 16y ago
  Some things certainly changed. Coming in via the Overture acquisition (a company that was basically printing money and had one of the highest revenue-per-employee in the web industry), Yahoo felt extremely cost-conscious. For example, there was (and still is) a much hated process you have to go through to get any hardware purchase approved. So, that part of what pg said didn't ring true to me. However, the ambivalence about being a tech company was definitely still there. The politics and the decision-making by people who didn't really understand tech was still there. There's a lot of variation between divisions in Yahoo, but where I was was definitely not "hacker-centric". Projects were managed as massive waterfall efforts. Innovations by technologists were basically impossible to launch or test unless you had the right people in upper management backing you. There were these "Hack Days" that happened occasionally which some people in the company seemed to really enjoy. I don't know anyone in my division who ever participated in one, because we were too busy "getting real work done" and our management wasn't going to let people take a day or two off when we had deadlines to meet.

Could it be that pg's observations about how things were in '98 were realized at Yahoo around 2003 when Google ate their lunch and all the easy money was gone and they've since adjusted?

dotcoma 16y ago
probably not. Look at who's CEO. And at how many smart people have left, from the Founders of Flickr and del.icio.us to Jeremy Zawodny and many many more...
- ojbyrne 16y ago
  I'd bet vastly more people have left Google (in both absolute and relative terms). Employees at both companies would have plenty of opportunities if they leave and little upward mobility if they stayed. Paul Bucheit, Evan Williams, that same founder of del.icio.us and many many more too.
  - yurylifshits 16y ago
    More founders leave Yahoo than Google Many founders of Google-acquired companies are still there (Youtube, Maps, ...) Out of all companies acquired by Yahoo only founders of most recent acquisitions are still there.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
    - ojbyrne 16y ago
      Citation?
      - yurylifshits 16y ago
        List of acquisitions: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Yahoo http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Yahoo! Founders can be found through CrunchBase Founders current status can be checked at LinkedIn I know, it is a lot of work :) Some cases where I am sure: Zimbra, Yahoo Groups, Flickr, Delicious
lsc 16y ago
It's also possible that PG talked to executives... and executives everywhere seem like idiots to hackers. I've met technical founders who were really sharp who listened and tried to emulate their business-focused partners to the point where they came off as kind of dumb to me. I watched this happen to one guy who was, by all appearances, smarter than I am at the beginning. (Of course, he may still have been making good decisions; he certainly made plenty of cash; they just looked like stupid decisions to me, and, well, I ain't rich yet, so maybe he was on to something.)
kscaldef 16y ago
Some things certainly changed. Coming in via the Overture acquisition (a company that was basically printing money and had one of the highest revenue-per-employee in the web industry), Yahoo felt extremely cost-conscious. For example, there was (and still is) a much hated process you have to go through to get any hardware purchase approved. So, that part of what pg said didn't ring true to me. However, the ambivalence about being a tech company was definitely still there. The politics and the decision-making by people who didn't really understand tech was still there. There's a lot of variation between divisions in Yahoo, but where I was was definitely not "hacker-centric". Projects were managed as massive waterfall efforts. Innovations by technologists were basically impossible to launch or test unless you had the right people in upper management backing you. There were these "Hack Days" that happened occasionally which some people in the company seemed to really enjoy. I don't know anyone in my division who ever participated in one, because we were too busy "getting real work done" and our management wasn't going to let people take a day or two off when we had deadlines to meet.