3 ms·

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I don't think "fixing" Yahoo ought to be as difficult as people make it seem. It's still a well regarded brand, and many mil

by dr_ 15y ago

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I don't think "fixing" Yahoo ought to be as difficult as people make it seem. It's still a well regarded brand, and many millions rely on it for email and as a homepage. It's finance section remains extremely popular. They purchased Sportacular, the app I use to keep track of games. Theyve just been very poorly managed. They acquired companies like delicious and Flickr, one they let wilted and the other they never really integrated into their platform- Flickr just feels like a freestanding entity. They should cut out the garbage that doesnt get many users and should focus on their prized assets. They should push ahead in developing unique content for their viewers. It may be too late to get into the mobile OS game, but TV is still pretty wide open and Yahoo can really do something here, using their existing assets and by further developing or partnering with content providers. I'm hopeful.

nkassis 15y ago
I agree with you on this. They have some really good things that they squander with bad management. Delicious should have replaced what ever was being developed internally since it was clearly superior but the company is full of politically minded middle managers who are breading in fighting. Maybe they could start there at fixing the thing, fire the majority of managers.
microarchitect 15y ago
Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I don't think "fixing" Yahoo ought to be as difficult as people make it seem. I worked for a semi-dysfunctional semiconductor company and so I think I have some perspective on what it takes to "fix" a company like Yahoo. I think the biggest reason a company becomes like Yahoo has less to do with senior management and more to do with the fact that the company is filled with low to mediocre quality middle managers and employees. Mediocre managers aren't very good at their job, so it seems like they make up by playing politics. Once politics is rampant, what gets done is not what works the best, but what helps you or your team get ahead in the political game. At this point you start bleeding talent because good people prefer not to work in an irrational workplace. You also lose the focus and initiative you need to keep a successful product successful. The worst part is that there's nothing you can really do to fix this. You can try to fire the bottom 10%, but if you only have a problem with the bottom 10%, you're not yahoo. You probably need to fire the bottom 50%, but then you wouldn't have enough personnel to keep all your assets going AND some of that 50% would also be good employees who lost out in the last edition the political olympic games. Any well-intentioned change in process or product focus by top-management will also inevitable morph into something completely different thanks to your low-quality middle managers who won't understand what you're trying to do, but will understand that they need to step up the politics to keep their jobs. I guess the point of my rant is that a big company is like an emergent system and you can't really fix a dysfunctional emergent system by changing a small number of things that are part of that system.
- schraeds 15y ago
  "Swat Teams" of vetted talent to handle the most prized assets and initiatives. Let the cruft keep up day to day, apply proven talent to the most important initiatives piece by piece. ie. Apple and the iMac, then iPod, iBook, iWorks, Final Cut etc etc.
  - demallien 15y ago
    I actually work in exactly this type of swat team. We were all hired at well above standard payrates at my large company to build the next generation product. The response from the existing teams was immediate - they saw us as a threat, and started doing everything they could to make our project fail. In the end they succeeded in gimping the product by simply giving us interfaces that just couldn't do what a good product needed. The swat team was dragged into mediocrity. Now many of those rather expensive hires are actively looking to move elsewhere. Moral of the story - building a star team in an existing company is a good way of building resentment about that team and is unlikely to breed success.
    - xxpor 15y ago
      Why didn't they give you the power to demand things from other teams, lest they be fired?
      - chime 15y ago
        You can demand a functional API but you cannot demand a reliable service. That is what they've been unable to provide in the first place.
      - demallien 15y ago
        Well, there are several reasons. One is that this is France, and firing people is just more hassle than it is worth. Th second, and more generally applicable reason, is that that would involve changing the status quo. If changing the status quo was that easy, you wouldn't need a SWAT team...
    - 15y ago
schraeds 15y ago
Google has algorithms, Yahoo! should have editors and journalists. For all these attempts to "fix" Yahoo! never once a new message, advertising campaign, real brand refresh other than a minor logo and homepage refresh. I'm talking the new lifestyle tech feels like the Chrome kids growing up commercials. Like Apple's FaceTime for families type connection with users.

by dr_ 15y ago

nkassis 15y ago

I agree with you on this. They have some really good things that they squander with bad management. Delicious should have replaced what ever was being developed internally since it was clearly superior but the company is full of politically minded middle managers who are breading in fighting. Maybe they could start there at fixing the thing, fire the majority of managers.

microarchitect 15y ago

Maybe I'm in the minority here, but I don't think "fixing" Yahoo ought to be as difficult as people make it seem. I worked for a semi-dysfunctional semiconductor company and so I think I have some perspective on what it takes to "fix" a company like Yahoo. I think the biggest reason a company becomes like Yahoo has less to do with senior management and more to do with the fact that the company is filled with low to mediocre quality middle managers and employees. Mediocre managers aren't very good at their job, so it seems like they make up by playing politics. Once politics is rampant, what gets done is not what works the best, but what helps you or your team get ahead in the political game. At this point you start bleeding talent because good people prefer not to work in an irrational workplace. You also lose the focus and initiative you need to keep a successful product successful. The worst part is that there's nothing you can really do to fix this. You can try to fire the bottom 10%, but if you only have a problem with the bottom 10%, you're not yahoo. You probably need to fire the bottom 50%, but then you wouldn't have enough personnel to keep all your assets going AND some of that 50% would also be good employees who lost out in the last edition the political olympic games. Any well-intentioned change in process or product focus by top-management will also inevitable morph into something completely different thanks to your low-quality middle managers who won't understand what you're trying to do, but will understand that they need to step up the politics to keep their jobs. I guess the point of my rant is that a big company is like an emergent system and you can't really fix a dysfunctional emergent system by changing a small number of things that are part of that system.

schraeds 15y ago
"Swat Teams" of vetted talent to handle the most prized assets and initiatives. Let the cruft keep up day to day, apply proven talent to the most important initiatives piece by piece. ie. Apple and the iMac, then iPod, iBook, iWorks, Final Cut etc etc.
- demallien 15y ago
  I actually work in exactly this type of swat team. We were all hired at well above standard payrates at my large company to build the next generation product. The response from the existing teams was immediate - they saw us as a threat, and started doing everything they could to make our project fail. In the end they succeeded in gimping the product by simply giving us interfaces that just couldn't do what a good product needed. The swat team was dragged into mediocrity. Now many of those rather expensive hires are actively looking to move elsewhere. Moral of the story - building a star team in an existing company is a good way of building resentment about that team and is unlikely to breed success.
  - xxpor 15y ago
    Why didn't they give you the power to demand things from other teams, lest they be fired?
    - chime 15y ago
      You can demand a functional API but you cannot demand a reliable service. That is what they've been unable to provide in the first place.
    - demallien 15y ago
      Well, there are several reasons. One is that this is France, and firing people is just more hassle than it is worth. Th second, and more generally applicable reason, is that that would involve changing the status quo. If changing the status quo was that easy, you wouldn't need a SWAT team...
  - 15y ago

schraeds 15y ago

Google has algorithms, Yahoo! should have editors and journalists. For all these attempts to "fix" Yahoo! never once a new message, advertising campaign, real brand refresh other than a minor logo and homepage refresh. I'm talking the new lifestyle tech feels like the Chrome kids growing up commercials. Like Apple's FaceTime for families type connection with users.