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Jerry Yang's Layoff Memo (YHOO) (alleyinsider.com)
11 points by jmorin007 on Dec 10, 2008 | hide | past | favorite | 15 comments



The "Yahoo Family". Sorry, when it comes to family - real family, not pretend family - you're stuck with them, and you don't just discard them because of "tough financial conditions". Heck, family run companies are full of examples of people who were actively harmful, and were kept on because they were actually family, not "family". Now, that may not be the best idea, but it's part of what family means to people where the word has some actual value attached to it. Sometimes the fake gets layered on too thick in the US. There are plenty of nice things you can say about a company without resorting to cheeseball shit about being a "family".


I would've liked to have seen some admission of culpability. While times are tough, Yahoo's main miseries come from the fact that they have been directionless for a long time, building products that nobody wants, or simply have no revenue potential. This is all under the leadership of Yang.

Personally I would have expected at least a small admission of guilt.


Out of curiosity, does anyone know why Yang writes his email without proper capitalization? Does it make employees feel like he's down on their level? (Apparently, they aren't good with capitalization, either?) Curious minds...


What you have to understand is that EVERY email from Jerry is lowercase. I can see how some people think this is offensive, but honestly, they lack the context of every other email he's ever sent. I think Yahoos would be worried if he started using capitals.


I don't think that quite answers the original poster's question. You're saying that it's just the way Jerry Yang's always done it, but why did he start doing it in the first place?


Hmmm. Two Tims disagree.


Yes but only one of them gets email from Jerry :P


Fair enough. That's what I get for vaguely referencing Kids In The Hall :]


A little before my time (the group formed the year I was born) but I'll have to check it out!


The thing that gets me is how he still manages to put the exclamation point in yahoo!.


It's a childish affectation that he never bothered to jettison. Rather like the people who do little smilies instead of dotting their i's


A self-indulgent throwback to when it was 'cool' to write like that on the internet.


Less typing?


superfluous mark-up


I like the first comment.

smallcaps said:

this email should have been sent in all caps instead.




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