Oy Vey, Yahoo: What On Earth Are You Thinking? (YHOO)

There's been a lot of talk about Yahoo suing Facebook over patents they hold that cover some basic web site and social networking features. I've read a ton of pieces arguing all sides. And certainly most of you have seen takes by Mark Cuban and Fred Wilson. Views by two people I respect. Whatever side you come out on (I'm still thinking about it) the timing is so ridiculously poor it's hard to imagine what the new CEO of Yahoo, Scott Thompson, was thinking. Some say the timing of this is perfect given the leverage Yahoo may have given the impending Facebook IPO. Ok, that may be true. But that's not what I'm talking about. Yahoo is a company adrift. One without a true north. It doesn't know what it is or what it wants to be. There are internal diagreements over the direction. We don't know what it is. It doesn't stand for anything. Even the tag lines of Yahoo vs. Facebook show us the differences in confidence of direction. "Yahoo! is the premier digital media company" - What the hell does that even mean? "Facebook helps you connect and share with the people in your life." - Now that makes sense to me. A new CEO must set a direction and get moving. Inspire and lead. This decision makes them look like a desperate leech even if they have a case. Sometimes, timing is everything. This first big move will be followed by a huge round of layoffs. One I suspect could lead to other phases that reduce the workforce by as much as 40-50%. Yahoo employees are embarrassed about what just happened. Layoffs (I've had to do them) and lawsuits don't inspire the staff to stay, to create, to re-invent a once great company. It also possibly telepaths a strategy of sell-offs, lay-offs and more patent trolling. Not growing and leading. The site is still huge. Their content channels are often #1 or #2 in their categories. Traffic a start-up would kill for. They do real revenue. People use it everyday. But, we don't have to have Yahoo right now. It's not irreplaceable. The brand wasn't tarnished, it's stale. But this action, right now, has the power to tarnish it. Especially on the internet where a brand, person or government can be destroyed in a day. I don't "hate" Yahoo right now. There are too many good people that work there for that. I am mystified by its actions and leadership. Protecting your assets is something I normally agree with. But Yahoo mistakenly thought the most important asset right now were patents. It's actually their audience, their employees and their partners. The only thing that will save those is to delight with direction, product, content and solutions. If they do that not only will morale turn around, but so will their currently bleak future. Republish this at will. I won't sue you. This post originally appeared at Jason Hirschhorn's Blog. Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:Why Scott Thompson Is The Right CEO For Yahoo So You Sold Your First Company — Now What Should You Buy First? The Carol Bartz Discount Being Applied To Yahoo Is Unbelievable

New Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson's Turnaround Plan (YHOO)

Three weeks after joining, new Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson hosted his first quarterly earnings call today. He declined to get into specifics, but he outlined the general principles of his turnaround plan. It all revolves around "balance" he said.

It needs to "balance" it's approach to customers, which are both users and advertisers. 

Yahoo needs to "balance what we are," said Thompson. He said Yahoo is a media company and a technology company. "We need to do both. We end the debate about which is more important. We must do both."

Yahoo needs to balance "thoughtfulness with speed." "I want to go fast," he said. "I immerse myself in details, but I make decisions fast. We will bring speed back into the equation. That's how we get into playing offense instead of defense."

Yahoo needs to balance its capital allocation between products of today, tomorrow, and the distant future. Thompson said Yahoo should invest most of its money in today's products, a "very signicant portion" toward products of tomorrow, and " a small, but meaningful amount" on products that will come out more than a year from the present. He said Yahoo will be open to new business models as it strives to innovate.

Beyond "balance" Thompson is convinced that "data" will play a huge part in Yahoo's turnaround. He called data "Yahoo's most undervalued asset" and said,  "I believe data will be the key component for driving innovation at Yahoo. It will be the cornerstone for creating new products and services." Thompson said Yahoo can use data to give users "uniquely releveant experiences," something "nobody's done yet on the Web." Prompted by an analyst, Thompson said that another component of Yahoo's turnaround would be aquisitions. To paraphrase, he said: I suspect that there will be places where we don't ahve the technologies today or the capablities today. If we want to put forward these agendas quickly, we'll have to be aggressive in the market. I'm relatively certain here that there will be things that interest us and fill in technology gaps we have today. Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:Yahoo Is Planning A Round Of LayoffsJerry Yang Had To Step Down To Give Scott Thompson A Chance With Yahoo ExecsRoy Bostock Hasn't Left The Yahoo Board Because He Needs To Finish Selling The Asian Assets

Yahoo To Begin Firing Thousands Next Week (YHOO)

Yahoo layoffs start next week, Kara Swisher says. She says the ultimate goal is for "thousands" of people in product, research and marketing to be let go. The cuts won't all come at once. The vision is for "a drastically slimmed-down organization with a focus on media, advertising and new but unclear “future” initiatives." Ross Levinsohn is expected to run Yahoo's media business.  Product boss Blake Irving's future is uncertain, says Kara. Kara has lots of details >> Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:Industry Sources: Yahoo Will Get Almost Nothing For Selling Its Ad Tech BusinessRight Media Founder: Here's The Only Reason To Buy Yahoo's Ad Tech BusinessDan Loeb Starts A Potentially Nasty Fight With Yahoo To Get His People On The Board

Here's Scott Thompson's Letter Explaining Why He Just Fired 2,000 Yahoos (YHOO)

Yahoo just fired 2,000 employees, 60 days after new CEO Scott Thompson joined the company. Here's his letter explaining the cuts, via the WSJ: Yahoos – Today we are restructuring Yahoo! to give ourselves the opportunity to compete and win in our core business.  The changes we’re announcing today will put our customers first, allow us to move fast, and to get stuff done.  The outcome of these changes will be a smaller, nimbler, more profitable Yahoo! better equipped to innovate as fast as our customers and our industry require. Over the last 60 days, we’ve fundamentally re-thought every part of our business and we will continue to actively consider all options that allow Yahoo! to put maximum effort where we can succeed. As part of this process, I believe we have to focus to win in a select group of core businesses globally: Core Media and Communications:  Our content, media, and communications experiences must be best in class.  That includes getting today’s core properties right and innovating on a next generation of great product experiences across all screens.∙ Platforms:  We must make our core platforms and systems a genuine strength for Yahoo! – platforms that we can really leverage to support our massive scale, drive the deepest personalization, and boost speed to market.∙ Data:  Our massive data sets must become a genuine competitive advantage for Yahoo!.  We have to unlock the value in our data to allow us to really understand our 700 million users, encourage and win their engagement and trust, leverage everything they do with us to more fully personalize their experiences, and to give our advertisers the immediate insights they are rightfully demanding. We are intensifying our efforts on our core businesses and redeploying resources to our most urgent priorities. Our goal is to get back to our core purpose – putting our users and advertisers first – and we are moving aggressively to achieve that goal. Unfortunately, reaching that goal requires the tough decision to eliminate jobs, which means losing colleagues and parting with friends.  Today, we will begin the process of informing employees about these changes. As part of that effort, approximately 2,000 people will be notified of job elimination or a phased transition.  We value our people and for those who will be leaving, we thank you for all you have contributed to Yahoo!.  We will treat all of our people with dignity and respect, providing resources to help manage through their transition. Change is never easy. But the time has come to move Yahoo! forward aggressively with increased focus and accountability.  Our values have always been about treating all Yahoos with dignity and respect, and today is a day to embrace those values.  This is an amazing company with exceptionally talented people and I know we will all do our best to encourage each other through this difficult period of transition. Scott Click here for live coverage of the layoffs >> Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:The Amazing Media Habits Of 8-18 Year OldsYahoo To Bring 'The Hammer' With Big Layoffs This WednesdayON THE HOT SEAT: 10 Tech CEOs Who Could Be Fired Tomorrow

Yahoo's Big Plan To Sell Off Its Asian Assets Is Dead Now (YHOO)

Yahoo has stopped talks with its Asian partners about selling back its stake, Kara Swisher at All Things D reports. Yahoo is no longer interested in a "cash-rich split" with Alibaba and Yahoo Japan. Yahoo's stock dropped 7% in reaction to the news. More to come ... Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:CHART OF THE DAY: Hate To Be Rude, But Facebook Is Not The Next Google. It's Not Even CloseThe Most Depressing Thing You'll Read About Yahoo…TodayYAHOO BOARD SHAKEUP!

Yahoo's New CEO: Acquisitions Will Be Part Of Our Turnaround (YHOO)

During a conference call to announce Yahoo's Q4 revenues, new CEO Scott Thompson was asked if M&A will be a big part of his turnaround strategy. Paraphrased, here's what he said: I suspect that there will be places where we don't have the technologies today or the capabilities today. If we want to put forward these agendas quickly, we'll have to be aggressive in the market. I'm relatively certain here that there will be things that interest us and fill in technology gaps we have today. Attention startups: Yahoo is looking to buy! Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:Yahoo Is Planning A Round Of LayoffsJerry Yang Had To Step Down To Give Scott Thompson A Chance With Yahoo ExecsRoy Bostock Hasn't Left The Yahoo Board Because He Needs To Finish Selling The Asian Assets

OCCAM'S RAZOR IN THE STOCK MARKET: The Most Likely Explanation Of Yahoo CEO's Fake Degree Looks Like The Right One...

When Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson was revealed to have a Computer Science degree on his bio that he hadn't actually earned, many people quickly assumed he was a liar. And when Thompson's PR minions at Yahoo ludicrously tried to dismiss the fake degree as an "inadvertent error" and then a whole week went by with no explanation from Thompson, more people assumed he was a liar. And then, a week later, when Thompson finally produced an explanation--it was a headhunter's fault!--that the headhunter immediately revealed to be bogus, everyone concluded he was a liar. So, while it's fair and nice to give people the benefit of the doubt, it's also good to know that, in corporate communications, "Occam's Razor" still applies: The most likely explanation is generally the right one. SEE ALSO: This Is The Best Thing That Has Happened To Yahoo In Years Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »

Rumor: Yahoo Is About To Fire Its Smartest Innovators (YHOO)

Sarah Lacy at PandoDaily is reporting Yahoo is about to fire members of its Yahoo Research arm, which is built with the goal of "Inventing the Future of the Internet." The company is firing at least the New York team of researchers, and possibly he entire division, at the end of the month, according to sources which are unnamed in the PandoDaily report. The good news is Google, Facebook and other companies are looking to acquire the team after it is let go, Lacy reports. Mark Zuckerberg, for example, is personally courting them, she said. Yahoo Research is a collection of academics and researchers — much like Hewlett-Packard's HP Labs and IBM Research. They are basically paid to come up with brand new, cutting-edge ideas. Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:If Patents Are Weapons, These Companies Are Armed To The TeethTHE APPLE INVESTOR: Everyone On The Street Is Upping Estimates And Price TargetsHere's What Will Keep Yahoo From Suing Facebook Into Oblivion

Yahoo Is So Bloated, It Could Cut 25 Percent Of Its Staff And Nobody Would Notice (YHOO)

Michael Smith, a former Yahoo business development manager in Asia, has posted a scathing rant about how the company was mismanaged. He is sure that layoffs are coming in the next two weeks, but says Yahoo is so overstaffed that it could cut 20 to 25 percent of its staff "without actually cutting much of its capabilities." Here are some choice bits:

Lots of talk, no action. "I remember going to meetings where we discussed how to make plans. In fact many product people where tied up for most of 2011 working on 2012 planning. Planning that was probably a colossal waste of time and money since the guy who spearheaded that level of planning is already out of the company."

Why keep a search team around? "Yahoo gave search to MSFT .... I have no idea if Yahoo or [new CEO] Scott [Thompson] can unwind that deal but at the very least it could cut the rest of the search team, search research and tiger team to save more of the costs from the deal. The amount of people working on search experiences is still way too high. The reality is, if Yahoo outsourced search it should really do it. Get rid of all search related employees. Put a search box up and when a user clicks the button the rest is done by MSFT."

Microsoft middle managers have taken over. "I can’t begin to count how many new execs have been brought in from MSFT over the past 2 years – all of whom, great people aside, have been doing more planning than doing. We used to joke that although MSFT didn’t actually buy Yahoo – for the most part MSFT was running Yahoo."

Yahoo has done a horrible job with business deals. "Anyone remember the Zynga deal? Waste of time. Zimbra? Xoopit? Dapper? Inquisitor? You can read the list here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Yahoo! . Very few of these deals made Yahoo a better, more able company but when you have corp dev people doing their own thing regardless of how it fits the product or business needs – then it makes sense to see a list like this .... I won’t even get into how the corp dev deal team handled integrations. It’s too painful to write about."

Why Yahoo's suing Facebook. Under a deal signed a few years ago, "Yahoo got single sign-in, which is great, and Yahoo users were able to share more easily on FB – worked wonders for Yahoo pageviews but FB got to easily export Yahoo address books and gleaned all the resultant data. Anytime Yahoo product managers tried to export the other way around or use the data we usually found that the agreement did not support that or that FB got to personally veto the Yahoo product idea. So FB got the spoils, Yahoo lost social and made FB even stronger in the process. My guess is Yahoo wants the deal looked at again while threatening with patents – sure this is a shitty strategy but such is life once you start losing."

Despite all this, Smith closes by saying that Yahoo is still an "amazing" company and he praises Scott Thompson for making decisions. Read the whole thing here. Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:ON THE HOT SEAT: 10 Tech CEOs Who Could Be Fired TomorrowTHE GOOGLE INVESTOR: Five Things You May Not Know About GoogleYahoo To Bring 'The Hammer' With Big Layoffs This Wednesday

Yahoo's New CEO 'Trashed' Yahoo's Product Team Last Week, Plans Big Changes (YHOO)

After spending a few weeks getting the lay of the land, new Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson is starting to make some moves. He's upsetting people in the process. A pair of sources close to the company say Thompson spent a long time meeting with Yahoo's product teams last week. During the meetings, says one source, Thompson "trashed" the efforts of the product team. This source says Yahoo product boss Blake Irving left the meeting "pretty down." This morning, AllThingsD's Kara Swisher had some color on the meeting: "Thompson reportedly quizzed the group on its plans, and pressed it to look less at short-term features and maintenance than on finding the next great thing." She also says the product team is going to have a re-org. Mark Morissey will head monetization. Jay Rossiter will run "platform," and Sashi Seth will do consumer-facing products. One Yahoo source says the company is in "chaos." "Scott is in a bunker, spending a lot of time listening to [board member] David Kenny. The whole company seems uninspired right now. The word going around that best describes Scott is "megalomaniac." Another Yahoo we spoke to says that people at the company expect big, sometimes painful changes from Thompson, and that's OK and even wanted. But this person says Thompson has to make his big move quickly and in one go; he has to rip the bandage off. This person says that from a revenue, brand, and employee retention standpoint, Yahoo cannot afford to have months of changes. Endless, on-going adjustments to the organization – its mission, budgets, and products – will "crush the place." We'd like to hear from more Yahoos, who can email nicholas@businessinsider.com or call 646 376 6014. Please follow SAI on Twitter and Facebook.Join the conversation about this story »See Also:Yahoo Could Pose A Problem For Facebook If It Tries To Enforce Its 1,000+ PatentsCHART OF THE DAY: Hate To Be Rude, But Facebook Is Not The Next Google. It's Not Even CloseThe Most Depressing Thing You'll Read About Yahoo…Today