4 ms·

I think the strategy is to get as many new decent developers outside the yahoo echo chambers, in an effort to change the working culture inside the company. Un

I think the strategy is to get as many new decent developers outside the yahoo echo chambers, in an effort to change the working culture inside the company. Unless I'm wrong, qwiki had 9 employees. To pay ~$5M/developer seems incredibly expensive. Yahoo could simply offer $500,000/yr and I'd reckon they'd attract talent at same caliber or better than qwiki. In that sense, this seems like a disastrous acquisition if purely for talent.

pavs 13y ago
I am not going to pretent to know how hiring process on big companies like yahoo/google works but here are some of the reasons I think for a company in Yahoo's position acqui-hire is the best way to go: - In general, top developer are more likely to work for more interesting companies with interesting problems to solve with good pay to boot. I think most good developer would rather work for Google or their own company than work for Yahoo. Since mooching top developers from Google is out of the question, acqui-hiring seems to be the next best option. - You can't play with 500k/yr strategy because they are other top companies with deeper pocket and can throw more money at employees than yahoo, also because it creates a bad precedent, where current employees who might be more talented but getting 1/5th of the pay. It also artificially increases values of developers IMO. - Getting acqui-hired employees from small companies/start-ups means hiring people who used to working under pressure and delivering/shipping. This might not always be the case for Yahoo current group of people. People from outside the eco-chamber might help them change the working culture. - They had to pay that amount, doesn't mean thats how much they value they employees, it also means thats how much they had to pay the investors in order to get employees to work for them.
- badclient 13y ago
  - You can't play with 500k/yr strategy because they are other top companies with deeper pocket and can throw more money at employees than yahoo Those same top companies can throw more money at start ups as well. They don't because they don't think they are worth that much or much at all. also because it creates a bad precent, where current employees who might be more talented but getting 1/5th of the pay. It also artificially increases values of developers IMO. Nothing creates worse precedence than being a yahoo employee of few years and finding out the new guy in the next cubicle became a millionaire because he came via a start up that didn't go anywhere. THAT's demoralizing as it gets and tells existing yahoo employees that if you want to make millions, you should leave yahoo because that's what the guy next door did.
  - pavs 13y ago
    I think you are very misinformed. - because Google and other big companies do pay crazy amount for acqui-hires, more often and more consistently than yahoo does: http://www.siliconbeat.com/2013/03/28/silicon-valleys-biggest-acqui-hire-er/ http://www.siliconbeat.com/2013/03/28/silicon-valleys-bigges... The reason Yahoo is more talked about because of Mayer and she is trying to pick up a sinking ship. A valiant u-turn of a dying silicon giant by an ex-googler story is more interesting than Google/MS/Facebook/Twitter acquiring to keep their strong position. - Being successful in startup takes a special kind of talent (with lotsa luck), if every joe/moe could do it, they would. Nothing is stopping any yahoo developer to leave their safe job and take on this challenge, but chances are they won't and most people don't.
    - badclient 13y ago
      1. You've proven my own point true: that even after competition from others, yahoo can still continue buying companies. Similarly, I'd argue yahoo can hire great employees for lots of money(but less than aqui hire) even if google etc decide to compete with them in matching salaries. 2. Start ups are hard. But when so many joe schmoe start ups that have created so little value get acquired for 50M, all of a sudden it lowers the barrier for start up success and makes more people want to do it.
- dyno12345 13y ago
  > You can't play with 500k/yr strategy because they are other top companies with deeper pocket and can throw more money at employees than yahoo, also because it creates a bad precent, where current employees who might be more talented but getting 1/5th of the pay. It also artificially increases values of developers IMO. Silicon Valley has this weird thing where it thinks the labor market shouldn't behave like a market.

pavs 13y ago

I am not going to pretent to know how hiring process on big companies like yahoo/google works but here are some of the reasons I think for a company in Yahoo's position acqui-hire is the best way to go: - In general, top developer are more likely to work for more interesting companies with interesting problems to solve with good pay to boot. I think most good developer would rather work for Google or their own company than work for Yahoo. Since mooching top developers from Google is out of the question, acqui-hiring seems to be the next best option. - You can't play with 500k/yr strategy because they are other top companies with deeper pocket and can throw more money at employees than yahoo, also because it creates a bad precedent, where current employees who might be more talented but getting 1/5th of the pay. It also artificially increases values of developers IMO. - Getting acqui-hired employees from small companies/start-ups means hiring people who used to working under pressure and delivering/shipping. This might not always be the case for Yahoo current group of people. People from outside the eco-chamber might help them change the working culture. - They had to pay that amount, doesn't mean thats how much they value they employees, it also means thats how much they had to pay the investors in order to get employees to work for them.

badclient 13y ago
- You can't play with 500k/yr strategy because they are other top companies with deeper pocket and can throw more money at employees than yahoo Those same top companies can throw more money at start ups as well. They don't because they don't think they are worth that much or much at all. also because it creates a bad precent, where current employees who might be more talented but getting 1/5th of the pay. It also artificially increases values of developers IMO. Nothing creates worse precedence than being a yahoo employee of few years and finding out the new guy in the next cubicle became a millionaire because he came via a start up that didn't go anywhere. THAT's demoralizing as it gets and tells existing yahoo employees that if you want to make millions, you should leave yahoo because that's what the guy next door did.
- pavs 13y ago
  I think you are very misinformed. - because Google and other big companies do pay crazy amount for acqui-hires, more often and more consistently than yahoo does: http://www.siliconbeat.com/2013/03/28/silicon-valleys-biggest-acqui-hire-er/ http://www.siliconbeat.com/2013/03/28/silicon-valleys-bigges... The reason Yahoo is more talked about because of Mayer and she is trying to pick up a sinking ship. A valiant u-turn of a dying silicon giant by an ex-googler story is more interesting than Google/MS/Facebook/Twitter acquiring to keep their strong position. - Being successful in startup takes a special kind of talent (with lotsa luck), if every joe/moe could do it, they would. Nothing is stopping any yahoo developer to leave their safe job and take on this challenge, but chances are they won't and most people don't.
  - badclient 13y ago
    1. You've proven my own point true: that even after competition from others, yahoo can still continue buying companies. Similarly, I'd argue yahoo can hire great employees for lots of money(but less than aqui hire) even if google etc decide to compete with them in matching salaries. 2. Start ups are hard. But when so many joe schmoe start ups that have created so little value get acquired for 50M, all of a sudden it lowers the barrier for start up success and makes more people want to do it.
dyno12345 13y ago
> You can't play with 500k/yr strategy because they are other top companies with deeper pocket and can throw more money at employees than yahoo, also because it creates a bad precent, where current employees who might be more talented but getting 1/5th of the pay. It also artificially increases values of developers IMO. Silicon Valley has this weird thing where it thinks the labor market shouldn't behave like a market.