Yahoo! Layoffs

Well, it has been rumored for about a month now and it is starting to happen … and it “hit home” again. My direct contact with Yahoo! is gone. Whether he took “the package” or was “RIF’d” is unknown. (BTW, “RIF” stands for “Reduction in Force” - which is rather humorous when you consider when I was growing up there was a nationwide program in the schools called “RIF” which stood for “Reading is Fundamental”.)

It seems a lot of top people who are leaving Yahoo! are basically driving across the valley over to Google and starting up again. I wouldn’t put anymore thought into this than you need to. Yahoo! will continue to move forward. I will continue to spend less and less with them because their services just aren’t keeping up with Google or even Microsoft. I’ll probably dump my stock tomorrow and take a nice profit.

The bottom line is, smart companies continue to “trim the fat” and get rid of people. It makes the company better. I remember years ago when I worked at WordPerfect. We were far too fat of a company. At one time we had over 5,000 people working there. In the last year the company was based in the U.S. we had about 600 employees and we were selling more product and getting more done than when we had 5,000.

How is that possible?

The best ones were left and we didn’t have the “problem makers” getting in the way of getting stuff done. If you work in an office, you know the types of people I am referring to … the ones that always cause projects to be slowed down or delayed. The smart executives have routine layoffs and get rid of those types of people … and the “good ones” who leave? Oddly enough there always seems to be someone either as good or better who steps in their place.

One person does not a company make. Unless, of course, we’re talking about my company.