DISQUS

Brent Ashley · 2 years ago

I know that from a business and acquisitions perspective, Yahoo has seemed stagnant for a while, however from my perspective in the web development geek sphere, Yahoo has been doing a stellar job snarfing up a preponderance of the top talent in the DHTML/Javascript/RichUI (or if you prefer "Ajax") field. Douglas Crockford, Bill Scott, and Simon Willison are but three of the top guys they have on staff - one could easily list a score of others (Eric Costello form the Flickr team comes immediately to mind). They have also contributed some really good development tools for the betterment of the rich UI world with their YUI library and Design Patterns library.

My take is that they are investing some good effort in talent and assets in preparation for whatever Web 2.0 turns out to actually be.

Mathew Ingram · 2 years ago

Thanks for the comment, Brent. That's an interesting perspective -- maybe Yahoo isn't quite as clueless behind the scenes as everyone makes them out to be. I just wish there was a little more external evidence of it.

Brent Ashley · 2 years ago

I suppose the most strategically talent-filled stables won't make a difference if you aren't in the right races, which has to happen at the tactical level.

Let's hope the changes that follow from the "peanut butter memo" make selective use of the talent and assets they've gathered rather than simply imposing symmetrical cuts across the board, laying waste to some good foundations for growth.

Mark Evans · 2 years ago

so what's yahoo doing making all these conflictive strategic moves? surely, terry semel has a masterplan, right? either garlinghouse is semel's agent of change or he's bucking for a nice severance package while making sure he gets some more profile as he looks for his next gig. frankly, nothing is ever this black and white - and garlinghouse's piece looks very, very grey.

Eric Jackson · 2 years ago

I agree with Brent that Yahoo! has some excellent engineers. I think most of them are frustrated by the business folks and its at their feet that the blame lies here. They're good people and hopefully this memos dislodges something there.

Keep your eye on Susan Decker. Rosensweig is too close to Terry and not respected enough by the rank-and-file Yahoo!s

Eric

howardlindzon · 2 years ago

I would still like to sell a company to them. Their cash is still green :)