8 ms·

A Week After Google Changes Algo, Mahalo Fires 10% of Staff

217 points by moses1400 16y ago

JeremyHerrman 16y ago
Jason said in the closing remarks of LAUNCH something to the effect of "I am so happy, let's go to the W and get drunk." After arriving at the W, I checked my phone and saw the article on Google's blog - some timing! I feel for him and all of the people that lost their jobs.
justinchen 16y ago
I think this only the beginning of the bad news due to this algo change. There are many legitimate businesses that have been seriously impacted by traffic drops and we'll probably see many more layoffs and budget cuts.
- YooLi 16y ago
  Out of curiosity, can you name some of the legitimate businesses that were affected? I thought the algo only targeted content farms and sites that regurgitated other peoples content.
  - WillyF 16y ago
    Mine is one. Google traffic is down 30%, and that significantly affects my revenue. http://www.onedayonejob.com/ http://www.onedayonejob.com/
    - InfinityX0 16y ago
      You need to increase the # of links you have from the homepage - I would suggest getting to the 100 internal link point by finding more ways to tag your jobs you have under "See All 1206 Entry Level Employers", which I imagine is driving most of your search traffic. Divide that by category types and link from the sidebar - this will pass linkjuice more efficiently and improve your traffic.
      - WillyF 16y ago
        That's a really good suggestion. I mostly use the tag pages to flow linkjuice throughout the site, and it seems to work pretty well. I'll think more about how I can improve my site architecture. But I was doing pretty well until Thursday. The really interesting thing is that http://www.onedayoneinternship.com/ http://www.onedayoneinternship.com/ has seen no change in traffic. Its architecture is nearly identical, and much of the content is shared across both sites (because I built the sites for humans, not search engines). There's a decent chance that this is causing the problem, but I can't understand why ODOJ would get hit instead of ODOI. Even content that isn't partially duplicated on ODOI is getting hit, so it's either a domain level filter/penalty based on duplicate content, or it's not the issue. Right now I'm thinking a lot about how to fix whatever Google doesn't like, but it's really hard when you can't be sure. I can't really afford to do significant testing (and you can't actually run a good experiment with a real site). For now I'm going to keep investigating, and work on building links. That's always a good time investment.
        T-hawk 16y ago
        > but I can't understand why ODOJ would get hit instead of ODOI. Wild guess: "job" is a highly competitive keyword subject to lots of scammy black hats ("work from home for $$$!!!"), while "internship" is much more clear of the scum?
  - mrjasonroy 16y ago
    One property my company holds, http://www.dentalcompare.com http://www.dentalcompare.com has been affected. It's a classic product comparison site (with a lot of problems) but there is not "farming" of content. Every company provides their products and every article is original or at most, a small abstract.
  - tristanperry 16y ago
    http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4261944.htm http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4261944.htm http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4273051.htm http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4273051.htm http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4274857.htm http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4274857.htm http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4272916.htm http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4272916.htm /\ For non-URLed discussion of dozens or possibly hundreds of legit sites which were hit. Today's Wired article gives some more specific examples: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/google-spam-side-effects/ http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/google-spam-side-effe...
  - justinchen 16y ago
    You can take a glance at this thread: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=76830633df82fd8e&hl=en http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=...
- dminor 16y ago
  I think this is only the beginning of good news due to this algo change. There are many legitimate businesses that have been positively impacted by traffic gains and we'll probably see more hiring and raises.
  - acangiano 16y ago
    Absolutely. SEO really is a zero-sum game.
    - patio11 16y ago
      That isn't true. For any particular search, yes, if one site goes down another site will necessarily go up. However, in aggregate, SEO creates value. Think of StackOverflow, for example: the primary mechanism for success isn't taking traffic from ExpertsExchange -- that is just a much-remarked side effect. The primary mechanism for success is successfully incentivizing the creation and distribution of answers for a broad universe of expert questions to which no responsive answers have ever appeared in the SERPS before. Similarly, an algorithmic change in Google which cleans up the long tail can help businesses in a variety of fashions. I mean, I'm not actually seeing major changes yet, but if my rankings for five thousand variations of "how do I make X bingo cards" over the universe of ten Xs which content farms deem valuable to target, that gives me additional resources to develop value-producing things elsewhere (like, e.g., subsidizing the development of AR, or ramping up my publication efforts from my current speed of ~250 to year to a higher number on progressively more obscure topics which real teachers really do want to teach lessons on tomorrow). Similarly, improving the value of the SERPs for any field of endeavor or user community results in an increase in the aggregate number of searches as user behavior changes. That is a change that lifts all boats.
      - po 16y ago
        …except for the boats it sinks. Namely, the long tail that they cleaned up. I'm not sure I understand when you say "SEO creates value" if you mean the so-called good/relevant SEO or the low quality/sketchy SEO. I assume you mean the former. SEO can mean "help make my site easy for google to honestly evaluate and judge the quality of my content" or it can mean "game google into thinking my content is what people want to see even though they probably don't". I can see how having a better index creates value but I'm not sure how SEO contributes to a better index. It seems like google changed the rules, some companies are doing worse, some are better (zero sum) but hopefully the index is better and people can find what they want (unlocking value). Is that what you're getting at?
marcamillion 16y ago
The messed up thing about this is, that 10% of the staff have 'slaved' for however long they have been there. All for naught. Maybe they can still get a referral from Jason, but given that I don't think that pays the bills...hopefully it can help them land on their feet.
- forensic 16y ago
  "slaved".. were they not compensated?
  - marcamillion 16y ago
    Perhaps, but as far as I understand it...they are compensated at a pittance with the hope that after 3 - 5 years they can leave with a nice payout and move on to 'bigger' and better. I guess my point is, this is why you should be careful who you commit to slave for (e.g. a boss that expressly says that they expect you to work like a slave) because at the end of the day - if the business ever turns down you are just a number. It's unfair to ask salaried employees to give the same as the founder, because the founders won't be first in line to be cut when revenues turn down.
    - robryan 16y ago
      What do you suggest then? They carry the employees even though it is no longer economically viable?
      - marcamillion 16y ago
        Not in the least. I think Jason did the fiscally prudent thing. He has a fiduciary responsibility to his shareholders to respond in the way he did. Very tough call, but no doubt the necessary call to make, if he wants to turn Mahalo into a going concern. I suggest that he doesn't go around bragging about how he only wants 'winners' and he expects everybody to give 80 hour weeks and all that non-sense. Giving someone free food, and a 'free chef', doesn't make up for demanding 80-hour weeks no matter what they tell you. I think he should just shut up, and set an example through deeds - because at the end of the day, 10% of the staff can (and should) get cut when revenue tanks. Acting like it won't happen and they will have a big payday if the company gets bought or goes public is disingenuous at best, and deceitful/fraudulent at worst. That being said, I don't think he should discourage people from working that long - on the occasion when they have a deadline to hit or something. But just be more responsible with the rhetoric, is all I am saying. These are people with families that are likely depending on their livelihood.
S_A_P 16y ago
Could someone tell me more about this Jason Calacanis fellow. He seems to be a very polarizing figure on this site. Really all I know is that he seemed to have a falling out with Michael Arrington and alot of articles seem to mention him in a slightly negative light. Is there some reason for this, and no I'm not trying to troll.
- arnorhs 16y ago
  You should check out some of his shows on http://thisweekin.com/thisweekin-startups/ http://thisweekin.com/thisweekin-startups/ - you can get a sense of who he is from watching a few. The general consensus on HN is that he doesn't treat people well or is somehow not very "honest". Personally, I'm a big fan. I watch every episode and I generally agree with most of what he says.
  - rokhayakebe 16y ago
    I agree. He just seems brutally honest, and that gets him in trouble. But hate him or love him, the guy does a great job with TWIST. I do not use Mahalo, so I cannot speak for it.
    - arnorhs 16y ago
      Same here. I don't even remember ending up on a Mahalo search results page, come to think of it.
      - rhizome 16y ago
        Like you, I know Mahalo mostly from knowing about it and skipping past their entries in Google results, but I wouldn't doubt that these kinds of sites enjoy a lot of clicks from people who just don't know English or the Internet very well. Understandable words are understandable words. The problems people have with Mahalo and their ilk are unimportant to 90% of the people on the Internet. Many are perfectly comfortable typing "how to cross street?" into google or their isp homepage and clicking the top link. Boom: business model.
    - 16y ago
aresant 16y ago
I feel for the cut staff and Mahalo has plenty of dough in the bank but reminds me of Jason's article "What to do if your startup is about fail (or "Don't Stop Believing")" http://calacanis.com/2009/02/27/what-to-do-if-your-startup-is-about-fail-or-dont-stop-believing/ http://calacanis.com/2009/02/27/what-to-do-if-your-startup-i... Applicable lesson I learned the hard way - better to make cuts early in the face of a serious shift vs. burn cash, see morale dip, etc.
- erickhill 16y ago
  Any time you go through a round of layoffs the morale is going to dip amongst the survivors for a little while. This is particularly acute when the company is small, and those being let go are perceived to have added value (usually culturally more than direct ROI). It can slowly chip away at the soul of a place. Crunchbase shows Mahalo at 40 employees pre-cut.
xutopia 16y ago
"Free advice for entitled Gen Y trophy kids: if you spend 12 months at a company over and over you look like a flake." http://twitter.com/#!/Jason/status/12621363849 http://twitter.com/#!/Jason/status/12621363849 Or maybe it makes you look like someone who thinks they have better opportunities elsewhere.
- suprgeek 16y ago
  Free Advice for opinionated Entrepreneurs - when you have the right to fire anyone at any time; evaluate the person you are hiring on merit and "fit" for the role. Not based on number of past stints or time spent at each company; but mostly do not come off looking like huge hypocrites.
  - danteembermage 16y ago
    I think this glosses over an important point. Hiring or firing is expensive in opportunity cost (e.g. project delays, disruption to the work environment, morale) and so it makes sense to internalize that cost in a hiring decision. Suppose Person A will provide value Y per year, cost X per year, and turn over in one year costing Z. Person B produces value Y - K, costs X, but will stay for 3. If K < (Z - Z/3) all else equal you'd choose person B. Building a brand that you jump ship for better jobs ought to cost you something, even if that something is much less than the salary you gain not being a gold-watch girl.
- run4yourlives 16y ago
  Regardless of the source, this is actually very good advice.
  - bad_user 16y ago
    I guess I'm a flake - hey, what can I say; I get bored easily and feel the need to switch projects often, especially when the project enters maintenance mode. I also have a free advice to entrepreneurs - since I'm working remotely as I don't live in the US, I have to be much better / work much harder than US developers, just so I can take home barely the minimum U.S. salary in this industry. I also don't get any equity. When that attitude changes, maybe I'll start giving a shit.
jacques_chester 16y ago
Well you can't fault them for dithering, can you?
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
robryan 16y ago
I personally have never found any useful content at Mahalo, sure the site looks a bit better now but the previous version was trash. Imagine how many investing in high quality content lost traffic to the older spam filled, next to no content Mahalo.
- mikecarlucci 16y ago
  For all the press Mahalo gets I've never seen a Mahalo page show up in the first page or two of Google results. Maybe I'm not looking for the right stuff, but ehow, wikihow etc. all would show up before adding them to Personal Blocklist.
thasmin 16y ago
Maybe this was the excuse for Mahalo to fire the 10% of its workers that were the least productive. The bottom 10% may have even been hurting the company.
- MikeCapone 16y ago
  Maybe, but I get the sense that the company's problems aren't primarily about productivity.
- shareme 16y ago
  JC never has bought into the Welch fire 10% least productive plan..otherwise it would happen every year..[sarcasm] wait that in fact has happen thus far!
mrtron 16y ago
Didn't they recently pivot and switch over from a lot of written articles to videos? It would make sense to get rid of some writers and get some video folks quick. With their 40 employees, 4 being let go seems hardly a news-worthy event. It seems even more of a stretch positioning this as google algorithm driven.
- ivankirigin 16y ago
  Read the article, which is about that shift. They are going to focus on how-to video.
- gsmaverick 16y ago
  They have 95 remaining employees, please read the article.
michaelpinto 16y ago
I've know Jason since the web 1.0 era in silicon alley — he's always give to his larger community (and still does with his podcast) and the one thing that Jason really taught me: If you fail, dust yourself off and startup again. Mark my words that Jason will come back. I think this is a lesson that everyone in business should learn...
- mypityforyou 16y ago
  No doubt he'll be back. That fat, arrogant fucker is an unkillable zombie of pure douchebaggery and dishonest bullshit.
jasonmcalacanis 16y ago
1. We're working with the folks impacted to place them at whatever company they would like to join. I'm personally reaching out to folks who might want these fine people. They will all wind up on their feet and be great additions to the vibrant startup scene in Los Angeles. 2. Mahalo is doing amazing videos with experts, but our (text) articles were created by passionate writers who are not necessarily experts. Google want's experts, so we're doubling down and getting experts to help build curriculums and lesson plans for our videos. I'm 100% certain that will solve the problem. 3. You can think of us as a free version of Lynda.com for everything. Or a version of Kahn Academy for everything. Imagine tens of thousands of these type of pages and videos being made a year: http://www.mahalo.com/learn-adobe-photoshop-adjustments-panel/ http://www.mahalo.com/learn-adobe-photoshop-adjustments-pane... We're going to teach folks every major piece of software, every recipe of note, how to change their oil and how to play any song on guitar or piano. http://www.youtube.com/howtoplayguitar2 http://www.youtube.com/howtoplayguitar2 Video is the future, and we're going to be the largest creator of educational videos this year. It sucks that we got hit so hard, but we will come back stronger. The 95 members of the team that are still with us are more committed than ever to the mission. Yes, it really sucked to get off stage after 47 amazing LAUNCH companies had such amazing launches on stage. I got told on my way to the after party. We struggled over these decisions all weekend with the leadership team. At the end of the day entrepreneurship is about kicking ass and getting your ass kicked. I've been through this many times, but I would be lying if I said it didn't impact me. It does. This is the first time I had such a big high followed by such a low, low. OK, time to change a diaper and give a bottle. No rest for the weary. Back to work.
- mypityforyou 16y ago
  How many weeks severance did you give them? Did you pay it in actual dollars, or Mahalo dollars, with the patented Mahalo exchange rate?
- staunch 16y ago
  You like brutal honesty and you put yourself out there, so I think it's fair to ask you. Why don't you leave your role at Mahalo and do what you're the absolute best at? (TWiST, LAUNCH Conf, TC competitor)? Plenty of people can do a video eHow, but almost no one else could rival TC. It seems like a pride/ego/money thing from the outside. Is it something else?
tmachinecharmer 16y ago
This is "Algorithm Age". Damn! They are powerful!
annajohnson 16y ago
I like Jason Calacanis. He's done a wonderful job with TWIST, the This Week In network, the Open Angel Forum and the Launch conference. I find him to be very funny and entertaining, passionate about entrepreneurship, tough-minded and determined to succeed, forthright and honest about his opinions, and someone who isn't afraid to make hard decisions. I do wonder about the future of Mahalo, though. Unlike some of Jason's other ventures, it seems as if Mahalo - now version 4.0 - has struggled to obtain a unique and strong identity, let alone sufficient market traction, so far. If it can be the best how-to video site on the Internet, great, but given Google's recent stance on how-to content sites (i.e. the 'farmer' algorithmic change), not to mention all the other companies vying to be the best how-to video site on the Internet, the company certainly has its work cut out for it. On the other hand, these are precisely the circumstances that sort out the real entrepreneurs from the wannabes and from Jason's comments above... I wouldn't count him or the Mahalo team out.
js4all 16y ago
After weeks of criticism on Google's results being spam'ed, it was clear that Google would react on this. The algorithm change was foreseeable. On the other side this shows the monopolistic power of Google and how they can hurt individual companies like they want. For us as search engine users, it is time to support other search engines, for instance DuckDuckGo.
- egor83 16y ago
  this shows the monopolistic power of Google and how they can hurt individual companies Changes like this hurt most if you depend on spam-like SEO. For example, Stack Overflow hasn't lost anything from this recent algorithm change - they actually gained from it.
- matthewlyle 16y ago
  If we were to all support another search engine instead, then they'd have the same power. And I'd hope they would do the same thing Google is doing right now.
dpcan 16y ago
I find this interesting because I have never done a Google search that led me to a Mahalo site. I don't even recall seeing them come up in a search result for anything honestly. Having heard about Mahalo through Podcasts and such, I have been to the site a few times to find some things, but usually ended up back at Google. However, now learning of the How-To style videos coming to the site in droves, I'm definitely interested again. So, this bad press and their bad fortune may lead to new visitors, such as myself. Probably not in the waves that Google brought, but it's "press" none-the-less.
paolomaffei 16y ago
"What’s really interesting to me is that I remember when Mahalo first launched, Jason told me numerous times he didn’t care about Google because he was going to build loyal users who would just come directly to Mahalo" Really?
bhavin 16y ago
Ironically, I was watching this video recently when Calacanis was talking about "How to kill Google". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTe15DEWp30 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTe15DEWp30
haploid 16y ago
Am I the only one who doesn't understand this at all? As far as I can tell, Mahalo.com is a video site. Why on earth would google going after content farms affect a video site in any way? To me, this headline makes about as much sense as "Microsoft changes Windows 7 pricing, pork belly futures skyrocket." Am I missing something?
grammaton 16y ago
Now, mind you, this is the same Calcanis who publicly bitched about how employees lack loyalty and job-hop. I wonder why? Mmmmm, savor the delicious irony.
Ben_Dean 16y ago
Someone get this cat a dictionary so he can look up "decimate", a better word for what happened than removing "a handful" of staff.

217 points by moses1400 16y ago

Jason said in the closing remarks of LAUNCH something to the effect of "I am so happy, let's go to the W and get drunk." After arriving at the W, I checked my phone and saw the article on Google's blog - some timing! I feel for him and all of the people that lost their jobs.

justinchen 16y ago

I think this only the beginning of the bad news due to this algo change. There are many legitimate businesses that have been seriously impacted by traffic drops and we'll probably see many more layoffs and budget cuts.

YooLi 16y ago
Out of curiosity, can you name some of the legitimate businesses that were affected? I thought the algo only targeted content farms and sites that regurgitated other peoples content.
- WillyF 16y ago
  Mine is one. Google traffic is down 30%, and that significantly affects my revenue. http://www.onedayonejob.com/ http://www.onedayonejob.com/
  - InfinityX0 16y ago
    You need to increase the # of links you have from the homepage - I would suggest getting to the 100 internal link point by finding more ways to tag your jobs you have under "See All 1206 Entry Level Employers", which I imagine is driving most of your search traffic. Divide that by category types and link from the sidebar - this will pass linkjuice more efficiently and improve your traffic.
    - WillyF 16y ago
      That's a really good suggestion. I mostly use the tag pages to flow linkjuice throughout the site, and it seems to work pretty well. I'll think more about how I can improve my site architecture. But I was doing pretty well until Thursday. The really interesting thing is that http://www.onedayoneinternship.com/ http://www.onedayoneinternship.com/ has seen no change in traffic. Its architecture is nearly identical, and much of the content is shared across both sites (because I built the sites for humans, not search engines). There's a decent chance that this is causing the problem, but I can't understand why ODOJ would get hit instead of ODOI. Even content that isn't partially duplicated on ODOI is getting hit, so it's either a domain level filter/penalty based on duplicate content, or it's not the issue. Right now I'm thinking a lot about how to fix whatever Google doesn't like, but it's really hard when you can't be sure. I can't really afford to do significant testing (and you can't actually run a good experiment with a real site). For now I'm going to keep investigating, and work on building links. That's always a good time investment.
      - T-hawk 16y ago
        > but I can't understand why ODOJ would get hit instead of ODOI. Wild guess: "job" is a highly competitive keyword subject to lots of scammy black hats ("work from home for $$$!!!"), while "internship" is much more clear of the scum?
- mrjasonroy 16y ago
  One property my company holds, http://www.dentalcompare.com http://www.dentalcompare.com has been affected. It's a classic product comparison site (with a lot of problems) but there is not "farming" of content. Every company provides their products and every article is original or at most, a small abstract.
- tristanperry 16y ago
  http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4261944.htm http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4261944.htm http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4273051.htm http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4273051.htm http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4274857.htm http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4274857.htm http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4272916.htm http://www.webmasterworld.com/google/4272916.htm /\ For non-URLed discussion of dozens or possibly hundreds of legit sites which were hit. Today's Wired article gives some more specific examples: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/google-spam-side-effects/ http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2011/03/google-spam-side-effe...
- justinchen 16y ago
  You can take a glance at this thread: http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=76830633df82fd8e&hl=en http://www.google.com/support/forum/p/Webmasters/thread?tid=...
dminor 16y ago
I think this is only the beginning of good news due to this algo change. There are many legitimate businesses that have been positively impacted by traffic gains and we'll probably see more hiring and raises.
- acangiano 16y ago
  Absolutely. SEO really is a zero-sum game.
  - patio11 16y ago
    That isn't true. For any particular search, yes, if one site goes down another site will necessarily go up. However, in aggregate, SEO creates value. Think of StackOverflow, for example: the primary mechanism for success isn't taking traffic from ExpertsExchange -- that is just a much-remarked side effect. The primary mechanism for success is successfully incentivizing the creation and distribution of answers for a broad universe of expert questions to which no responsive answers have ever appeared in the SERPS before. Similarly, an algorithmic change in Google which cleans up the long tail can help businesses in a variety of fashions. I mean, I'm not actually seeing major changes yet, but if my rankings for five thousand variations of "how do I make X bingo cards" over the universe of ten Xs which content farms deem valuable to target, that gives me additional resources to develop value-producing things elsewhere (like, e.g., subsidizing the development of AR, or ramping up my publication efforts from my current speed of ~250 to year to a higher number on progressively more obscure topics which real teachers really do want to teach lessons on tomorrow). Similarly, improving the value of the SERPs for any field of endeavor or user community results in an increase in the aggregate number of searches as user behavior changes. That is a change that lifts all boats.
    - po 16y ago
      …except for the boats it sinks. Namely, the long tail that they cleaned up. I'm not sure I understand when you say "SEO creates value" if you mean the so-called good/relevant SEO or the low quality/sketchy SEO. I assume you mean the former. SEO can mean "help make my site easy for google to honestly evaluate and judge the quality of my content" or it can mean "game google into thinking my content is what people want to see even though they probably don't". I can see how having a better index creates value but I'm not sure how SEO contributes to a better index. It seems like google changed the rules, some companies are doing worse, some are better (zero sum) but hopefully the index is better and people can find what they want (unlocking value). Is that what you're getting at?

marcamillion 16y ago

The messed up thing about this is, that 10% of the staff have 'slaved' for however long they have been there. All for naught. Maybe they can still get a referral from Jason, but given that I don't think that pays the bills...hopefully it can help them land on their feet.

forensic 16y ago
"slaved".. were they not compensated?
- marcamillion 16y ago
  Perhaps, but as far as I understand it...they are compensated at a pittance with the hope that after 3 - 5 years they can leave with a nice payout and move on to 'bigger' and better. I guess my point is, this is why you should be careful who you commit to slave for (e.g. a boss that expressly says that they expect you to work like a slave) because at the end of the day - if the business ever turns down you are just a number. It's unfair to ask salaried employees to give the same as the founder, because the founders won't be first in line to be cut when revenues turn down.
  - robryan 16y ago
    What do you suggest then? They carry the employees even though it is no longer economically viable?
    - marcamillion 16y ago
      Not in the least. I think Jason did the fiscally prudent thing. He has a fiduciary responsibility to his shareholders to respond in the way he did. Very tough call, but no doubt the necessary call to make, if he wants to turn Mahalo into a going concern. I suggest that he doesn't go around bragging about how he only wants 'winners' and he expects everybody to give 80 hour weeks and all that non-sense. Giving someone free food, and a 'free chef', doesn't make up for demanding 80-hour weeks no matter what they tell you. I think he should just shut up, and set an example through deeds - because at the end of the day, 10% of the staff can (and should) get cut when revenue tanks. Acting like it won't happen and they will have a big payday if the company gets bought or goes public is disingenuous at best, and deceitful/fraudulent at worst. That being said, I don't think he should discourage people from working that long - on the occasion when they have a deadline to hit or something. But just be more responsible with the rhetoric, is all I am saying. These are people with families that are likely depending on their livelihood.

S_A_P 16y ago

Could someone tell me more about this Jason Calacanis fellow. He seems to be a very polarizing figure on this site. Really all I know is that he seemed to have a falling out with Michael Arrington and alot of articles seem to mention him in a slightly negative light. Is there some reason for this, and no I'm not trying to troll.

arnorhs 16y ago
You should check out some of his shows on http://thisweekin.com/thisweekin-startups/ http://thisweekin.com/thisweekin-startups/ - you can get a sense of who he is from watching a few. The general consensus on HN is that he doesn't treat people well or is somehow not very "honest". Personally, I'm a big fan. I watch every episode and I generally agree with most of what he says.
- rokhayakebe 16y ago
  I agree. He just seems brutally honest, and that gets him in trouble. But hate him or love him, the guy does a great job with TWIST. I do not use Mahalo, so I cannot speak for it.
  - arnorhs 16y ago
    Same here. I don't even remember ending up on a Mahalo search results page, come to think of it.
    - rhizome 16y ago
      Like you, I know Mahalo mostly from knowing about it and skipping past their entries in Google results, but I wouldn't doubt that these kinds of sites enjoy a lot of clicks from people who just don't know English or the Internet very well. Understandable words are understandable words. The problems people have with Mahalo and their ilk are unimportant to 90% of the people on the Internet. Many are perfectly comfortable typing "how to cross street?" into google or their isp homepage and clicking the top link. Boom: business model.
  - 16y ago

aresant 16y ago

I feel for the cut staff and Mahalo has plenty of dough in the bank but reminds me of Jason's article "What to do if your startup is about fail (or "Don't Stop Believing")" http://calacanis.com/2009/02/27/what-to-do-if-your-startup-is-about-fail-or-dont-stop-believing/ http://calacanis.com/2009/02/27/what-to-do-if-your-startup-i... Applicable lesson I learned the hard way - better to make cuts early in the face of a serious shift vs. burn cash, see morale dip, etc.

erickhill 16y ago
Any time you go through a round of layoffs the morale is going to dip amongst the survivors for a little while. This is particularly acute when the company is small, and those being let go are perceived to have added value (usually culturally more than direct ROI). It can slowly chip away at the soul of a place. Crunchbase shows Mahalo at 40 employees pre-cut.

xutopia 16y ago

"Free advice for entitled Gen Y trophy kids: if you spend 12 months at a company over and over you look like a flake." http://twitter.com/#!/Jason/status/12621363849 http://twitter.com/#!/Jason/status/12621363849 Or maybe it makes you look like someone who thinks they have better opportunities elsewhere.

suprgeek 16y ago
Free Advice for opinionated Entrepreneurs - when you have the right to fire anyone at any time; evaluate the person you are hiring on merit and "fit" for the role. Not based on number of past stints or time spent at each company; but mostly do not come off looking like huge hypocrites.
- danteembermage 16y ago
  I think this glosses over an important point. Hiring or firing is expensive in opportunity cost (e.g. project delays, disruption to the work environment, morale) and so it makes sense to internalize that cost in a hiring decision. Suppose Person A will provide value Y per year, cost X per year, and turn over in one year costing Z. Person B produces value Y - K, costs X, but will stay for 3. If K < (Z - Z/3) all else equal you'd choose person B. Building a brand that you jump ship for better jobs ought to cost you something, even if that something is much less than the salary you gain not being a gold-watch girl.
run4yourlives 16y ago
Regardless of the source, this is actually very good advice.
- bad_user 16y ago
  I guess I'm a flake - hey, what can I say; I get bored easily and feel the need to switch projects often, especially when the project enters maintenance mode. I also have a free advice to entrepreneurs - since I'm working remotely as I don't live in the US, I have to be much better / work much harder than US developers, just so I can take home barely the minimum U.S. salary in this industry. I also don't get any equity. When that attitude changes, maybe I'll start giving a shit.

jacques_chester 16y ago

Well you can't fault them for dithering, can you?

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

robryan 16y ago

I personally have never found any useful content at Mahalo, sure the site looks a bit better now but the previous version was trash. Imagine how many investing in high quality content lost traffic to the older spam filled, next to no content Mahalo.

mikecarlucci 16y ago
For all the press Mahalo gets I've never seen a Mahalo page show up in the first page or two of Google results. Maybe I'm not looking for the right stuff, but ehow, wikihow etc. all would show up before adding them to Personal Blocklist.

thasmin 16y ago

Maybe this was the excuse for Mahalo to fire the 10% of its workers that were the least productive. The bottom 10% may have even been hurting the company.

MikeCapone 16y ago
Maybe, but I get the sense that the company's problems aren't primarily about productivity.
shareme 16y ago
JC never has bought into the Welch fire 10% least productive plan..otherwise it would happen every year..[sarcasm] wait that in fact has happen thus far!

mrtron 16y ago

Didn't they recently pivot and switch over from a lot of written articles to videos? It would make sense to get rid of some writers and get some video folks quick. With their 40 employees, 4 being let go seems hardly a news-worthy event. It seems even more of a stretch positioning this as google algorithm driven.

ivankirigin 16y ago
Read the article, which is about that shift. They are going to focus on how-to video.
gsmaverick 16y ago
They have 95 remaining employees, please read the article.

michaelpinto 16y ago

I've know Jason since the web 1.0 era in silicon alley — he's always give to his larger community (and still does with his podcast) and the one thing that Jason really taught me: If you fail, dust yourself off and startup again. Mark my words that Jason will come back. I think this is a lesson that everyone in business should learn...

mypityforyou 16y ago
No doubt he'll be back. That fat, arrogant fucker is an unkillable zombie of pure douchebaggery and dishonest bullshit.

jasonmcalacanis 16y ago

1. We're working with the folks impacted to place them at whatever company they would like to join. I'm personally reaching out to folks who might want these fine people. They will all wind up on their feet and be great additions to the vibrant startup scene in Los Angeles. 2. Mahalo is doing amazing videos with experts, but our (text) articles were created by passionate writers who are not necessarily experts. Google want's experts, so we're doubling down and getting experts to help build curriculums and lesson plans for our videos. I'm 100% certain that will solve the problem. 3. You can think of us as a free version of Lynda.com for everything. Or a version of Kahn Academy for everything. Imagine tens of thousands of these type of pages and videos being made a year: http://www.mahalo.com/learn-adobe-photoshop-adjustments-panel/ http://www.mahalo.com/learn-adobe-photoshop-adjustments-pane... We're going to teach folks every major piece of software, every recipe of note, how to change their oil and how to play any song on guitar or piano. http://www.youtube.com/howtoplayguitar2 http://www.youtube.com/howtoplayguitar2 Video is the future, and we're going to be the largest creator of educational videos this year. It sucks that we got hit so hard, but we will come back stronger. The 95 members of the team that are still with us are more committed than ever to the mission. Yes, it really sucked to get off stage after 47 amazing LAUNCH companies had such amazing launches on stage. I got told on my way to the after party. We struggled over these decisions all weekend with the leadership team. At the end of the day entrepreneurship is about kicking ass and getting your ass kicked. I've been through this many times, but I would be lying if I said it didn't impact me. It does. This is the first time I had such a big high followed by such a low, low. OK, time to change a diaper and give a bottle. No rest for the weary. Back to work.

mypityforyou 16y ago
How many weeks severance did you give them? Did you pay it in actual dollars, or Mahalo dollars, with the patented Mahalo exchange rate?
staunch 16y ago
You like brutal honesty and you put yourself out there, so I think it's fair to ask you. Why don't you leave your role at Mahalo and do what you're the absolute best at? (TWiST, LAUNCH Conf, TC competitor)? Plenty of people can do a video eHow, but almost no one else could rival TC. It seems like a pride/ego/money thing from the outside. Is it something else?

tmachinecharmer 16y ago

This is "Algorithm Age". Damn! They are powerful!

annajohnson 16y ago

I like Jason Calacanis. He's done a wonderful job with TWIST, the This Week In network, the Open Angel Forum and the Launch conference. I find him to be very funny and entertaining, passionate about entrepreneurship, tough-minded and determined to succeed, forthright and honest about his opinions, and someone who isn't afraid to make hard decisions. I do wonder about the future of Mahalo, though. Unlike some of Jason's other ventures, it seems as if Mahalo - now version 4.0 - has struggled to obtain a unique and strong identity, let alone sufficient market traction, so far. If it can be the best how-to video site on the Internet, great, but given Google's recent stance on how-to content sites (i.e. the 'farmer' algorithmic change), not to mention all the other companies vying to be the best how-to video site on the Internet, the company certainly has its work cut out for it. On the other hand, these are precisely the circumstances that sort out the real entrepreneurs from the wannabes and from Jason's comments above... I wouldn't count him or the Mahalo team out.

js4all 16y ago

After weeks of criticism on Google's results being spam'ed, it was clear that Google would react on this. The algorithm change was foreseeable. On the other side this shows the monopolistic power of Google and how they can hurt individual companies like they want. For us as search engine users, it is time to support other search engines, for instance DuckDuckGo.

egor83 16y ago
this shows the monopolistic power of Google and how they can hurt individual companies Changes like this hurt most if you depend on spam-like SEO. For example, Stack Overflow hasn't lost anything from this recent algorithm change - they actually gained from it.
matthewlyle 16y ago
If we were to all support another search engine instead, then they'd have the same power. And I'd hope they would do the same thing Google is doing right now.

dpcan 16y ago

I find this interesting because I have never done a Google search that led me to a Mahalo site. I don't even recall seeing them come up in a search result for anything honestly. Having heard about Mahalo through Podcasts and such, I have been to the site a few times to find some things, but usually ended up back at Google. However, now learning of the How-To style videos coming to the site in droves, I'm definitely interested again. So, this bad press and their bad fortune may lead to new visitors, such as myself. Probably not in the waves that Google brought, but it's "press" none-the-less.

paolomaffei 16y ago

"What’s really interesting to me is that I remember when Mahalo first launched, Jason told me numerous times he didn’t care about Google because he was going to build loyal users who would just come directly to Mahalo" Really?

bhavin 16y ago

Ironically, I was watching this video recently when Calacanis was talking about "How to kill Google". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTe15DEWp30 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTe15DEWp30

haploid 16y ago

Am I the only one who doesn't understand this at all? As far as I can tell, Mahalo.com is a video site. Why on earth would google going after content farms affect a video site in any way? To me, this headline makes about as much sense as "Microsoft changes Windows 7 pricing, pork belly futures skyrocket." Am I missing something?

grammaton 16y ago

Now, mind you, this is the same Calcanis who publicly bitched about how employees lack loyalty and job-hop. I wonder why? Mmmmm, savor the delicious irony.

Ben_Dean 16y ago

Someone get this cat a dictionary so he can look up "decimate", a better word for what happened than removing "a handful" of staff.