3 ms·

Yahoo to lay off more than 20% of staff as it shrinks ad biz

53 points by dudul 4y ago

arthurcolle 4y ago
Pure comedy > These cuts will immensely help profitability and help us "go on offense" i.e. "Dead people can't catch Cordyceps"
PaulHoule 4y ago
"... its newly-formed partnership with ad tech giant Taboola" Ouch! Taboola is the subprime advertising of subprime advertising. It's kinda shocking that it doesn't get blocked by malware filters.
- hedora 4y ago
  Remember that old HN post where someone actually intentionally clicked on a Taboola ad, then attempted to get find an answer to whatever question it was claiming to answer on the landing page / site? Good times.
satvikpendem 4y ago
I didn't know Yahoo still had employees. What do they do?
- cinntaile 4y ago
  They slowly die.
  - satvikpendem 4y ago
    Well, don't we all
- Macha 4y ago
  Ad Tech, Mail, Finance, Sports (especially fantasy football is big), TechCrunch, Engadget. Mail is a lot of legacy users, Finance and Sports are actually decently liked in their circles, TechCrunch and Engadget you might not know are owned by Yahoo. Ad Tech had three major units, two of which are being shut down by this move. They were once third place after Google and Facebook, but I think Amazon and the trade desk have overtaken them since.
- meese712 4y ago
  Yahoo is somehow the ninth most visited website. I guess people still use their (well Microsoft's) search.
  - honkler 4y ago
    you mean yahoo finance and yahoo sports.
- orionion 4y ago
  First they deleted all my old "Yahoo Groups" files. Then I had a prolonged illness where I couldn't use my old Yahoo e-mail accounts. They deleted my e-mails. ALL of them. Now "THEY" are being deleted. Maybe there is a just universe after all...
linkjuice4all 4y ago
At least they're a little more honest about why this is happening: "Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone stressed that the layoffs are not attributable to financial challenges, but rather, strategic changes to the company's Yahoo for Business advertising unit, which is not profitable. " Unfortunately I can't speak to the quality of Yahoo's ad inventory but that might say a lot in and of itself (the partnership with Taboola certainly doesn't fill my mental "ROAS" with confidence). It looks like there was a little too much money sloshing around in the ad space and the pullback is starting to show up in layoffs. Granted there's definitely some fat to trim in the ad business in the form of account managers that are basically just inside-sales. I really hope that a lot of these (presumably) talented employees that have been laid off from these various companies go out on their own and take down these established businesses for good.
oaththrowaway 4y ago
Glad I got out of there before they got sold to PE

53 points by dudul 4y ago

Pure comedy > These cuts will immensely help profitability and help us "go on offense" i.e. "Dead people can't catch Cordyceps"

PaulHoule 4y ago

"... its newly-formed partnership with ad tech giant Taboola" Ouch! Taboola is the subprime advertising of subprime advertising. It's kinda shocking that it doesn't get blocked by malware filters.

hedora 4y ago
Remember that old HN post where someone actually intentionally clicked on a Taboola ad, then attempted to get find an answer to whatever question it was claiming to answer on the landing page / site? Good times.

satvikpendem 4y ago

I didn't know Yahoo still had employees. What do they do?

cinntaile 4y ago
They slowly die.
- satvikpendem 4y ago
  Well, don't we all
Macha 4y ago
Ad Tech, Mail, Finance, Sports (especially fantasy football is big), TechCrunch, Engadget. Mail is a lot of legacy users, Finance and Sports are actually decently liked in their circles, TechCrunch and Engadget you might not know are owned by Yahoo. Ad Tech had three major units, two of which are being shut down by this move. They were once third place after Google and Facebook, but I think Amazon and the trade desk have overtaken them since.
meese712 4y ago
Yahoo is somehow the ninth most visited website. I guess people still use their (well Microsoft's) search.
- honkler 4y ago
  you mean yahoo finance and yahoo sports.
orionion 4y ago
First they deleted all my old "Yahoo Groups" files. Then I had a prolonged illness where I couldn't use my old Yahoo e-mail accounts. They deleted my e-mails. ALL of them. Now "THEY" are being deleted. Maybe there is a just universe after all...

linkjuice4all 4y ago

At least they're a little more honest about why this is happening: "Yahoo CEO Jim Lanzone stressed that the layoffs are not attributable to financial challenges, but rather, strategic changes to the company's Yahoo for Business advertising unit, which is not profitable. " Unfortunately I can't speak to the quality of Yahoo's ad inventory but that might say a lot in and of itself (the partnership with Taboola certainly doesn't fill my mental "ROAS" with confidence). It looks like there was a little too much money sloshing around in the ad space and the pullback is starting to show up in layoffs. Granted there's definitely some fat to trim in the ad business in the form of account managers that are basically just inside-sales. I really hope that a lot of these (presumably) talented employees that have been laid off from these various companies go out on their own and take down these established businesses for good.

oaththrowaway 4y ago

Glad I got out of there before they got sold to PE