Yahoo Layoffs Begin, CEO Sends Employees Apologetic Letter 138
redletterdave writes "As expected, Yahoo began laying off more than 2,000 employees on Wednesday morning — roughly 14 percent of the company's total workforce — in its effort to slim down and pivot its focus in a new direction. The mass layoff marks the sixth time in four years — and under three different CEOs, no less — that Yahoo has dumped employees, but this one will the company's biggest in its 17-year history. Scott Thompson, Yahoo's CEO, sent an apologetic letter to all his employees this morning explaining the changes."
Yahoo is dead (Score:5, Informative)
And Ballmer sighs with relief at not having bought this turkey.
Re:Wrong question (Score:2, Informative)
You write a good post. But you aim at the wrong subject. You should ask yourself: Why does Yahoo find themselves in this position in the first place? (hint: it has something to do with not giving customers what they want)
It depends on who your customer is. Yahoo has been pretty good at giving end users what they want. Google has been pretty good at giving people with advertising dollars to spend what they want. Unfortunatly, one of these types of customers pay much better than the other (given that the content is "free").
Strong companies don't have these problems with "hedge fund" guys. Weak ones do. Like nature, american enterprise and the markets can be very cruel. It seems odd to me that you complain when things work the way they are supposed to work. What did you think was supposed to happen when you don't give customers what they want? (ie: you are not successful in the marketplace - for whatever reason).
If you define companies w/ high valuation and/or preferred voting share structure as "strong", I agree with you. However in a company with a more equitable share structure, if a so called "hedge fund" guy thinks that some large company assests aren't being used as profitably as they think they can be managed (they smell a short term untapped business opportunity), they often buy a bunch of shares (buy low) and try to force their way on the board to implement their idea. Of course this manuver isn't very easy in a company with a share structure that doesn't allow them to easily force their way on the board to implement their plan.
In this situation, Yahoo, has some large assets (Alibaba, large user base), and no doubt some hedge fund has some idea that they can (in the short term) take advantage of these assets better than the current board or management for quick profit. Yahoo share price is low and the structure allows for the hedge company to do this. As a non-tech example, a hedge fund once tried to get McDonalds to spin off their corporately owned restaurants into a separate company using this strategy. Might have been a good idea in the short term, but might not be in McD's long term interest. I don't think McD's is a "weak" company.