Tough times

Posted December 10th, 2008 at 11:06 am by Jerry Yang, CEO & Chief Yahoo

 56 Comments / Filed in: General

As we announced in October, we’ve been aggressively managing our costs to bring them in line with the challenging economic conditions. Unfortunately, that means laying off employees –- by far the toughest part of being a manager. Here’s the email I sent to Yahoos today:

yahoos,



today, most of our layoffs in the US are happening, and they’ve been underway in other regions around the world. 



this is a tough time for all of us and i wanted to take a moment to reach out to you.
 


saying goodbye to colleagues and friends is never easy. they all are dedicated members of our yahoo! family, who worked beside us and shared our passion. 



but as you all know, we must take actions to better perform in today’s turbulent global economy. while we’ve found efficiencies in many parts of our business, laying off employees is unfortunately unavoidable. our difficult decision to let colleagues go reflects the changes we’re having to make to better align costs with revenues – something businesses in virtually every sector are also having to do. 
 


for those who are affected by these layoffs, i am extremely grateful for your contributions to yahoo!. we realize the impact this will have on you. that’s why, consistent with our past practices, we’re making every effort to support you with severance packages and other services. 
 


the reductions we’re making are very hard, but they are also very necessary — as we focus on the long-term health of our business. to those who are leaving us, i extend my heartfelt thanks on behalf of yahoos everywhere — you will be missed.



thanks,
 

jerry

Jerry Yang
Chief Yahoo and CEO

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56 Comments Add your own

Juha | December 10th, 2008 at 12:51 pm

Jerry, could you not have used the shift key in that message? Making it a bit more respectful…

Easton Ellsworth, TechStartups.com | December 10th, 2008 at 1:39 pm

Sorry to hear this news, Jerry. Best wishes to Yahoo! during this tough time.

How many employees is Yahoo! losing?

Dave | December 10th, 2008 at 1:46 pm

Seriously? When I send notes or short messages I don’t obey grammar or punctuation but when you’re sending it to several thousand employees, you don’t bother? That’s unprofessional, even for a hip company.

Now, I just hope that I didn’t make any grammar mistakes…

Mary | December 10th, 2008 at 1:49 pm

I never understood that about his writing. Most email and word processors will do the formatting for you automatically unless you specifically and manually configure it to do otherwise. So it must be a some sort of a protest against…good grammar? Intelligence? “The man”? Dunno.

And Juha, I agree, it is disrespectful, especially for an announcement that hurts people’s lives.

Zach | December 10th, 2008 at 1:49 pm

All of his internal emails are sent sans-caps. I don’t think it’s disrespectful, just the way he communicates.

Cindy | December 10th, 2008 at 2:47 pm

I’m sad for the employees who are losing their jobs. I wish them well. It surprises me that someone who heads a large corporation doesn’t use proper grammar. I call it laziness.

Vincent | December 10th, 2008 at 3:01 pm

I hope the worst is behind Yahoo.

Anthony Papillion | December 10th, 2008 at 3:05 pm

Jerry,

Tough times at Yahoo. You all have my sympathy. It goes to show that even great companies are not immune to this disaster economy.

Stay strong Yahoo! You’ll be ok in the end. We’re behind you.

Warmly,
Anthony Papilliion

BLOG:
http://www.cajuntechie.com

Nicki Dugan | December 10th, 2008 at 4:14 pm

@Easton Ellsworth – We laid off 10% of our global workforce, which was previously approximately 15,000 employees.

Gurol | December 10th, 2008 at 4:26 pm

In my view, the underlying elements of Jerry’s post seem to be professional courtesy, sensitivity, appreciation, and respect to his ex-colleagues. As such, the content – as opposed to style – should be the main subject of discussion here.

Tyson | December 10th, 2008 at 4:59 pm

Those of you griping over his typing style need to get over yourselves. We’re not the Era of Miss Manners anymore and adding capitalizations wouldn’t have changed the content of his letter which was very heartfelt and sincere.

He tried the best he could and it’s incredibly easy for all of us to armchair quarterback. Unless you have succeeded at leading a huge company under the circumstances Yahoo faced, you glass house dwellers should stop throwing stones about his leadership and writing style.

Nancy Logan | December 10th, 2008 at 5:48 pm

Nobody is talking about his leadership – I admire him for it and his achievements, as I’m sure we all do. But seriously, is a shift key too much to ask when thousands are losing their jobs? This is probably the last e-mail they’ll ever see from him, and it kind of leaves a bad impression on someone who will have to worry about feeding their family over the next few weeks.

“He fired me, and didn’t even respect me enough to capitalize his sentences!”

ddas | December 10th, 2008 at 5:48 pm

dear jerry yang,
thanks for using lower case only letters. it will be great if we all avoid using upper case letters. instead we could add few more letters in english and make the alphabet follow phonetics. that way there will be no more spelling bee contest. there will be no more yahoo/google spell check contest. -:)
we all will spell correctly every word. and yahoo search will be as good as google search.

daf | December 10th, 2008 at 5:55 pm

i DoN’t sEe THE pRoBLem wIth His posT.

Traditional Tradesman | December 10th, 2008 at 6:01 pm

The lack of capitalization, I believe, is not just an accident or mere sloppiness. This post was obviously vetted very carefully by management, and the use of lowercase letters is a pathetic attempt to seem more like “one of the people” while you’re in the process of laying them off. A total embarrassment.

Ken | December 10th, 2008 at 6:53 pm

Very sorry to hear about such drastic measures being taken to remain in the market. It is definitely affecting every type of business.
I hope that when the recovery comes, Yahoo makes first openings available to those that were let go because of financial hardships.

Good luck to you in the future.

Bob | December 10th, 2008 at 7:10 pm

A word of appreciation for Jerry. I don’t work for Yahoo, but here is a CEO who has expressed genuine concern for his employees. I think his message comes from his heart.

I compare this with many heartless CEO, VP’s I have worked for, who lay-off people and insult them further during the process as if they did something wrong, and try to get away with not paying any severance.

So kudos to Jerry the man, a honest individual in this technology world filled with Shyster CEO’S & Executives- and all some people complain about is the Grammer (which I am sure is his intentional style of writing).

Wish we had more genuine people like Jerry as Executives in Corporate America. We will all have a better life, and no Enron, Illinois scandals. And no, I am not a brown noser- dont work for Yahoo.

- Anonymous Director from some other Company

ron | December 10th, 2008 at 7:16 pm

How does shifting keys imply respect? Juha, you need serious help, get another cat.

acm | December 10th, 2008 at 9:18 pm

ps: if i had taken that microsoft deal in february yall would be rich right now. my bad guys — that one’s on me.

Jeff Greenwald | December 10th, 2008 at 9:28 pm

Yahoo was so cool. And unfortunately, the operative word in that sentence is “was”. Semel and Yang were brought in (or “back” ) to lead the way from the cool offerings of the 90’s to the newest ones of the new milennium. … the older offerings/services have now been replicated by the industry followers…..
and instead of Yang and Semel creating a unique value proposition or a differentiation between Yahoo and the rest of the market….they became Operations Managers…and not very good ones at that either. And now the employees are paying the price. This same scenario has played itself out at AMD, Sun Microsystems, and a number of other valley companies. Many problems you can outrun in years of plenty/ growth…….but the problem catches you like a bear…when the music stops.
Tell us again why employees get a few months severance but you execs get millions when you are forced out?

Dude | December 10th, 2008 at 9:51 pm

Here is one problem with Yahoo: They hired at all levels (from engineers to VPs) many people who were kicked off from other companies because they were not doing anything of professional quality there while contributing to driving those companies into the ground. I wonder why Yahoo hires people who cannot write or speak 1 English sentence or people who fake their resumes without testing their skills first. I love Yahoo and feel very sorry for all the good engineers and managers there. Happy Holidays and good luck to you guys!

David | December 10th, 2008 at 11:01 pm

Jerry, you should have resigned concurrent with this layoff. This would have been the honorable course of action.

j | December 11th, 2008 at 1:38 am

Caps? come on!!! If Jerry is really upset about laying off or having to let some of his employees go (and it sounds to me like he is, by reading this very, seeemingly, heart felt letter) just think, if it was upsetting you to let your employees go, it would require some real effort to even put together words to write to them. That would be tough enough and some of you want to complain about caps. I read a heart felt message here.

Dany Bachir - Lebanon | December 11th, 2008 at 1:57 am

I do agree that it would have been much better if Jerry had used caps in his email, especially after seeing that he used them in his introductory note in his post. But this does not mean the man should be attacked!It’s just his email-writing-style. Good thing he wrote “jerry” and not “Jerry”. Otherwise you guys would have written much worse! Give him a break, at least he sent an email.

Ex-Yahoo | December 11th, 2008 at 2:02 am

What a croc. Jerry, you have to be one of the most disgraceful execs in tech. Have some honor. QUIT!

Chris Caffee | December 11th, 2008 at 3:56 am

So much of what has been lost in America is the style of past generations of executive management. I have know people who have formed companies from nothing, cashed out with 10s of millions and who had the common sense to cover grammer as a formality. This is a generational exclamation point from one of this decades crop of executives that disapoints many. The fact that Yahoo is such an important piece of the American dilema just makes matters worse.

charles luzze | December 11th, 2008 at 4:37 am

ha, ha, ha… if you all believe Yang’s use of lowercase in his layoff letter is telling then you haven’t seen anything yet! These layoffs aren’t being done to get Yahoo back on its feet – they’re being done as a pre-cursor to selling the company. That’s right, Yang and management have already decided the company must be sold and they are now taking actions that will make the ‘books’ look more appealing to the buyer. In fact, if this goes down in typical fashion, Microsoft has already told YAHOO what it wants the headcount to be at before they consumate any deal. This is done all the time.

Kindaian | December 11th, 2008 at 4:38 am

The use of lower key at all words can be hushing the words down, in an humble way in this case…

Just like writing IN ALL CAPITALS may signify two things… that you are shouting… or that you have the shift key stuck…

I will leave the exact interpretations to your own.

;)

Dick Randy | December 11th, 2008 at 6:16 am

Just yesterday, looking at the turmoil in my own company, I had sent my resume to Yahoo…

Akmed | December 11th, 2008 at 6:17 am

“why didn’t he use the shift key” – what a bunch of moaning idiots.

I’m surprised someone didn’t complain about the squares: “How disrespectful for Jerry to mock his employees by putting little square eyes at the end of his paragraphs. The combination of lower case and square eyes clearly points to a severe lack of respect towards those employees with poor eyesight!!!!”….duh…..

Rick | December 11th, 2008 at 6:36 am

Am I the only one that thinks the timing stinks?

I mean seriously, couldn’t the exec’s over at Yahoo come up with an idea to postphone the layoff’s till after the holidays. It’s bad enough your putting stress on all the employees your releasing, but to time it so that they get the stress and worries right before Christmas, ruining what is supposed to be a cheerful time, seems like an added slap in the face. GG Yahoo

John | December 11th, 2008 at 8:12 am

I dont think it is beyond the scope of the email about how it was formatted etc, etc,

but the content of the message and how it conveyed to the readers.

Dorron | December 11th, 2008 at 8:28 am

The nature of business today requires financial and personnel cutbacks. They may be unavoidable, but companies taking these steps are also losing future resources. Personnel cut, suddenly without income and/or activities for which they are needed, are left in shock and depression. This is not a “humane” way of treating a valued fellow co-worker. A more efficient way is to reduce job loads and corresponding pay incrementally. Allowing targeted employees to volunteer or donate time for projects in work while using company facilities to look for their next positions, keep their talents on-board and may help the company turn-around. With luck and good planning the company’s future will look bright and rosy, and those who stuck with it will provide the company with an unparalleled future resource.

veryverygut | December 11th, 2008 at 8:35 am

for those who insist of shift keys, which part of the world are u from? modern typography has given up upper case since 1920s.

this is a purely personal choice. shouldn’t judge one’s content based on its form.

rafael j. | December 11th, 2008 at 10:43 am

As an ex-Yahoo, I am very sad for the way things have turned out for the company in the past years. Ultimately, of course, its leaders are to blame. However, Jerry and David founded a great company from scratch and they should be very proud of their accomplishments. Today, more than 13,000 people have jobs because of them. Today, 500M users around the world have somewhere to go online because of them.

Too bad the game changed and Yahoo! reacted very slowly. Too bad Yahoo! lost its soul in the process. Too bad shareholder value was destroyed.

Still, even today, Yahoo! remains the number 1 destination on the web and is profitable. That should account for something. I think, as the board said they do, that Yahoo! is quite undervalued.

Regarding Jerry’s notes in all-lowercase: every Yahoo knows that Jerry always writes like that. Having sent an e-mail in a different style would only tell people that he didn’t write it. Remember, this mail was sent to Yahoos, not to any other audience.

iddaa | December 11th, 2008 at 12:34 pm

The lack of capitalization, I believe, is not just an accident or mere sloppiness. This post was obviously vetted very carefully by management, and the use of lowercase letters is a pathetic attempt to seem more like “one of the people” while you’re in the process of laying them off. A total embarrassment.

GET LOST JERRY! | December 11th, 2008 at 2:44 pm

Hey Jerry,

I personally think it would have been appropriate to at least punctuate your letter properly. At the minimum, at least start your paragraphs with a capital letter; talk about being intellectually lazy.

The laziness and greed you have is what has put the company into the position it is today. You know you should have sold to Microsoft earlier this year, especially with the problems Yahoo was encountering. With the mess you made of Yahoo, it’ll probably only be another 5 years or so before the stock gets back to the level Microsoft wanted to take over the company.

Oh well Jerry, some people never learn.

Good riddance.

Martin | December 11th, 2008 at 2:58 pm

Using the shift key requires that little extra effort, which is why you leave it out in informal communication – it isn’t a stylistic choice. Just more effective… hence, not nice here – and if you disagree, then would you consider sms style layoff messages ok, too…

x’up yahoos, 2day we layin ya’ll off just txt’in 2 let u know. L8 Jerry

mk | December 11th, 2008 at 6:03 pm

Most people don’t like to be fired, and most people don’t get a kick out of being fired.

I hope M. Yang and others in Yahoo! inc. remember the people who were fired, and when the good times come again, and they always do, sooner or later, invite them back in a post at the level they had when fired or they have when they can be hired again, whichever is the highest.

That would be a very unique corporate society. Most companies don’t do that today.

James | December 11th, 2008 at 7:08 pm

This explains it all:

http://www.amazon.com/Fooled-Randomness-Hidden-Chance-Markets/dp/1587990717

Ram | December 11th, 2008 at 9:53 pm

Jerry comes across as a very simple and straightforward man. Why complicate his life with Grammar.

Tarn | December 11th, 2008 at 9:54 pm

He probably uses notepad to type which doesnt format text. I dont know why people over analyse. Jerry’s just a simple man and he’s put across his thoughts. I am sure he’s going through a lot of pain sacking his people.

Chris Baker | December 12th, 2008 at 2:02 am

@ GET LOST JERRY! – Laziness and greed? The man co-founded the company and it’s his life’s work. You wouldn’t even have a Jerry Yang target to yell at if he hadn’t stepped back in with the total belief that he could save the company he started. Laziness is doing what Tyson said – armchair quarterbacking and never actually doing of the “advice” and “scoldings” you spit out so easily and anonymously over the internet.

As for the grammar police, if he had capitalized his letter, I suppose none of you would have anything to comment on in this blog post then? If Jerry Yang decided to change his writing style to suit your demands, you would all be fine? Nitpicking much?

Thoughts are with all Yahoo employees. Hopefully none of the folks offering up “obvious” advice on this post end up as your next CEO.

Maddy | December 12th, 2008 at 5:32 am

Give him a break. It’s M$ to blame for both capitalization error and lay-off. The drivers screwed him up in both cases.

Akmed | December 12th, 2008 at 5:46 am

There are always people who look past the real story and look for conspiracies when there are none. In this case it’s the “lower case conspiracy”. I’m sure that there will be several more da Vinci code dirge posts about the hidden meaning of the message. Probably suggesting that the use of lower case has a secret symbolic meaning linked to the NWO, or that by drawing a pentagram onto the message you can get the points to spell special incantations to summon Cthulhu. The same kinds of people believe that NASA faked Apollo or that the Holy Grail is in a crate, stacked on top of a disassembled UFO in a big CIA warehouse near Area 51.

I.e. They are idiots.

Ram | December 12th, 2008 at 7:37 am

Give him a break folks. He’s going through a tough time too and nobody likes to sack their own employees.

Voigtman | December 12th, 2008 at 9:48 pm

Jerry’s tone was very respectful towards employees who were laid off. The vast majority of CEOs do not tell departing employees that they will be missed and that their contributions were appreciated. I truly believe Jerry would have done anything to avoid this action. As for selling the company: that’s his job. His first priority is to look out for shareholder interests. Sorry if you do not like it, but that’s what the CEO of a publicly traded company has to do. Jerry should not have become the CEO since he lacks good management skills and was outplayed by Google, but he has one trait missing in today’s corporate leaders: a good heart.

Wicked | December 13th, 2008 at 8:13 am

Best wishes to Yahoo! during this tough time.

Dorothy Stahlnecker | December 13th, 2008 at 11:54 am

Jerry sometimes it’s hard to comprehend the rudeness of people who from the outside seem to think they can be judge and jury..

Blessings and better times for all of us..it takes a strong and committed man to give his personal thoughts during difficult times..

Dorothy from grammology
grammology.com

Ron Bailey | December 15th, 2008 at 6:47 am

Vaya con Dios ^_^

Steve | December 16th, 2008 at 4:56 pm

Attn all past Yahoo associates.
I am a financial advisor in the San Fernando Valley that helps individuals with 401K rollovers. I know many employees have been laid off and should strongly consider moving their retirement accounts. So if you do not have someone you work with, please give me a call @ 818-774-1003. We can also help you with Health Insurance, which may be less expensive than COBRA.

Steve

john | December 17th, 2008 at 6:21 am

jerry,
kudos to you for your honesty and feeling for your people. I know you are different from outher ruthless CEOs. I wish you would have more shares @yahoo

Holt | December 18th, 2008 at 4:44 pm

the internet doesn’t need capital letters to operate, folks. engineers typically type millions of lines of code. and when you type all day long. doing it in lowercase indeed enables one to type faster. try it yourself. you might like it.

chetan | December 24th, 2008 at 3:36 am

People always hate to talk about when they are laid off. But as it has become every day’s news headline since Yahoo started it with cutting 1500 of its task force last year, now a need of platform has been in demand where people can express their selves in words how they are feeling about their company, whey the got laid off was that justified or not. And every thing they want to tell anonymously.

And http://www.layoffgossip.com is providing you that platform.

reader | January 6th, 2009 at 11:42 pm

yahoo should put more soul into the company they are….ask all the ex yahoo’s and you will have a list of what yahoo could have been if they had respected the people who worked for them.Giving money always doesnt means respecting them.

cryo | September 14th, 2009 at 4:14 pm

seriously, you guys have had it easy for too long. your giving a man grief because he notifies you about pending employee cut-backs and all you can do is think to critisize his punctuation. on my way up i have worked jobs where there was absolutely no notification, go home one night secure in your position knowing that the company will pull through. then you show up for work to locked doors cause the company just decided to close one day. hey their right but you sons-of-b’s say omg your laying me off at least have the courtousy to use good puctuation. ya’ll need to join something that i’d like to call the real world.