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Yahoo! VP Calls For a Shakeup
prostoalex writes, "Yahoo!'s Senior VP Brad Garlinghouse sent out a company-wide memo calling for layoffs of 15-20% of Yahoo! staff and reversal of priorities to concentrate on major issues facing the company. (The Wall Street Journal posted a copy of the memo.) MarketWatch quotes Garlinghouse: 'I've heard our strategy described as spreading peanut butter across the myriad opportunities that continue to evolve in the online world. The result: a thin layer of investment spread across everything we do and thus we focus on nothing in particular. I hate peanut butter. We all should.'"
I'm tellin' ya, it's them dang yahooligans steelin all mah peanutbutters!
Ok, I couldn't resist making a cat picture for this one, since there seems to be some kind of peanutbutter meme going on...
"Im in ur Yahoo.comz eatin all ur peanut butterz"
Why is it that anytime an executive says lay-offs are prudent, it must simply be for a bonus check and not be for the betterment of the company? I'm also surprised about the amount of vitriol in reaction to his suggestion of reduced workforce because he seems to indicate that the most bloat is in management and not the "worker bees". He only lists a headcount reduction, no reference to a specific project or specific employee-group.
Garlinghouse lists 8 separate sectors where Yahoo has multiple products competing. I don't have a verified number, but elsewhere in this same thread people mentioned that Yahoo offers 30+ different services. Reducing 8 redundant services would be reducing somewhere around 25% of their total services. If they can eliminate 25% of their services and only reduce the workforce 15-20% it doesn't sound like rampant firings just for the sake of firing people. He doesn't specifically outline what his exact ideal plans would be, but it sounds like simply eliminating redundant services, eliminating bloated bureaucracy, and refocusing workers on complimentary & cohesive services. This is a good thing for Yahoo even though it may be unpopular to say so.
On another note... I never feel sorry for laid-off workers. If they are good, they should have no problem replacing the job. If they aren't good, they shouldn't have had the job to begin with. Maintaining a commitment to the lowest standards simply because firing people is unpleasant is an easy way to doom a company.