4 ms·

I agree that it will be interesting to find out if Yahoo is sitting on a pile of talented engineers who just need better management in order to return to produc

by minimax 14y ago

I agree that it will be interesting to find out if Yahoo is sitting on a pile of talented engineers who just need better management in order to return to productivity, or if years of bad management have caused all the real talent to flee. My hunch (based on working at a poorly managed big company) is it's the latter and that years of bad management have created a sort of adverse selection in engineering talent. Talented productive people will leave or be poached away and the people you're left with will happily sit around doing nothing and taking a pay check. My prediction is that Yahoo is going to fire a bunch of people this year.

michaelochurch 14y ago
I'd guess that Yahoo has some talented people and some deadweight, but that seems obvious. No idea what the proportions are. How would you fix the problem? Abstractly, I support the idea of firing the untalented, lazy, or parasitic people who drain the company. In practice, very few companies can execute this, because figuring out who those people are, without the process getting corrupted and political, is a rarely accomplished feat. Project-by-project layoffs, while more unfair, I think are often better than most "low performer initiatives" that devolve into witch hunts. Certainly, if she implements Google's HR/performance review process, she'll only make the company worse and probably kill it.
- minimax 14y ago
  I think a successful strategy could look something like this: First, fire a bunch of people to free up some money. Next, hire some upper level management from Google (or Facebook, Apple, wherever) and give them the authority to build new organizations within Yahoo using either existing Yahoo employees or by hiring people away from other companies in the valley. Sell the opportunity to work at "the new yahoo" under manager X (who was recently hired and presumably has some name recognition) that is insulated from "the old yahoo" and all its crappy culture of politics and underachievement.
- SatvikBeri 14y ago
  The overall impression seems to be that "The Elves Left Middle Earth" several years ago, and Yahoo today is primarily C-players. Different people will have different opinions, this is simply the result of my gathered impressions. Now, Marissa Mayer is heavily involved with new hiring at Yahoo[1]. While this isn't a silver bullet, it probably raises their hiring process from ~10th percentile to ~30th percentile (numbers not exact.) Combine those two and that means that the average new hire is better than the average old employee. So randomly firing old employees and hiring new ones is actually a +EV bet. This is an incredibly rare situation! But when you consider the sheer insanity of the circumstances Mayer is working against, I actually believe that most of her decisions have been correct. [1]: http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-is-reviewing-every-single-new-hire-at-yahoo-2012-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-is-reviewing-ev...

by minimax 14y ago

michaelochurch 14y ago

I'd guess that Yahoo has some talented people and some deadweight, but that seems obvious. No idea what the proportions are. How would you fix the problem? Abstractly, I support the idea of firing the untalented, lazy, or parasitic people who drain the company. In practice, very few companies can execute this, because figuring out who those people are, without the process getting corrupted and political, is a rarely accomplished feat. Project-by-project layoffs, while more unfair, I think are often better than most "low performer initiatives" that devolve into witch hunts. Certainly, if she implements Google's HR/performance review process, she'll only make the company worse and probably kill it.

minimax 14y ago
I think a successful strategy could look something like this: First, fire a bunch of people to free up some money. Next, hire some upper level management from Google (or Facebook, Apple, wherever) and give them the authority to build new organizations within Yahoo using either existing Yahoo employees or by hiring people away from other companies in the valley. Sell the opportunity to work at "the new yahoo" under manager X (who was recently hired and presumably has some name recognition) that is insulated from "the old yahoo" and all its crappy culture of politics and underachievement.
SatvikBeri 14y ago
The overall impression seems to be that "The Elves Left Middle Earth" several years ago, and Yahoo today is primarily C-players. Different people will have different opinions, this is simply the result of my gathered impressions. Now, Marissa Mayer is heavily involved with new hiring at Yahoo[1]. While this isn't a silver bullet, it probably raises their hiring process from ~10th percentile to ~30th percentile (numbers not exact.) Combine those two and that means that the average new hire is better than the average old employee. So randomly firing old employees and hiring new ones is actually a +EV bet. This is an incredibly rare situation! But when you consider the sheer insanity of the circumstances Mayer is working against, I actually believe that most of her decisions have been correct. [1]: http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-is-reviewing-every-single-new-hire-at-yahoo-2012-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/marissa-mayer-is-reviewing-ev...