Gawker
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rumormonger
The craziest Yahoo layoff stories
Did you hear Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang had his house lined with Kevlar before he laid off 1,500 employees? No idea if that's true, but that's the best rumor I heard all week.
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By Owen ThomasComment by BambalinaCoronus: Reading gripes from bitter layoffs victims is so boring. It's like listening to someone whose going through a divorce trash... 4 Responses | Other threads
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Yahoo Layoffs
Yahoos drowning their sorrows
Where are laid-off Yahoos drinking away their sorrows? Some in San Francisco, where Yahoo's Brickhouse incubator is located, have congregated at Hotel Utah, a bar South of Market known for its live music. I called the bar and bought them a round of shots — the least I could do after all the fine, fine tips Yahoo employees have provided me over the years. The Brickhouse office will close at the end of the year, one told me. (Photo via 7x7)
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By Owen ThomasComment by JakeAndjoan: Those assholes could have sold the company, made the overall operation stronger, and given over a year severance + equity... 2 Responses | Other threads
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We Read Twitter So Sheryl Sandberg Doesn't Have To
South Park power outage frees workers from Web 2.0
The power is out in South Park, San Francisco's startup epicenter. Wired and Yahoo Brickhouse — in the same building — are affected. Caffe Centro is down. Jack Falstaff isn't answering the phone. Six Apart, a block away on Fourth Street, is up. Workers are roaming the neighborhood. Got any more data points? Send 'em in to tips@valleywag.com.
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By Paul BoutinComment by Troll_2.0: Web 2.0 freedom, but never free from Troll 2.0 more » | Other threads
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twitter
Ex-Twitterer Blaine Cook soon out of Yahoo
Does Twitter miss former architect Blaine Cook, the technician who was simultaneously blamed for the site's outages and hailed for keeping it alive? We're guessing so, if only because Cook's long-haired mug still — still! — gazes from Twitter's jobs page. Cook recently took a job at Yahoo's Brickhouse incubator. He was chummy enough with his coworkers to show up at a going-away party for departing Brickhouse chief Chad Dickerson. But Cook is apparently a short-timer there. A source reports Cook saying he couldn't wait for his contract to expire so he can leave around the end of next month. That's a brief stint, even for Yahoo.
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By Owen ThomasComment by WhatBubble: @Owen Thomas: Nice dodge, amigo, but you miss the point. I'm not suggesting that you should have known it was a... more » | Other threads
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caption contest
And in the end the stock you take is equal to the mess you make
How many ex-Yahoo managers does it take to reproduce a classic Beatles album cover? From left to right: Salim Ismail, Chad Dickerson, Scott Gatz, and Bradley Horowitz. All four were, at some point, responsible for parts of Yahoo's advanced-products group, including the Brickhouse incubator in San Francisco. The band reunited last night at the 21st Amendment bar in San Francisco's South of Market district to bid Dickerson farewell; he is leaving Yahoo to become CTO of Etsy, the Brooklyn-based marketplace for hipster-friendly handicrafts one must nod politely about. Ismail is attending to Confabb, the startup he failed to sell before joining Yahoo; Gatz is now running GayCities, a queer-travel website; and Horowitz is now at Google. Can you think of a better caption? Leave it in the comments The winner will become the post's new headline. Yesterday's winner: Naughty Jason L. Baptiste, for "One bubble Pete Cashmore would like to pop."
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By Owen ThomasComment by Snorbalp: If the pizza guy would floor it, he could take out that tool doing the robot. more » | Other threads
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valleyspeak
The unhappy death of the Blogger Appeasement Group
In what seems like another age, my predecessor once wrote about companies' "blogger appeasement groups" — units dedicated to generating buzz, not bucks. With Chad Dickerson leaving Yahoo Brickhouse, the troubled company's troubled incubator for new ideas, I think we can declare the delusion of blogger appeasement groups safely over. The self-appointed punditocracy of the blogosphere never was a real customer — nor even a twisted proxy for a real customer. Playing to the echo chamber only generated noise — a specialty of former Brickhouse head Salim Ismail. More » -
exits
Yahoo Brickhouse head to leave, again
Chad Dickerson, who has been responsible for Yahoo's Brickhouse incubator since December, is leaving the company to be CTO at Etsy, an online handicrafts retailer. We hear Google, where former boss Bradley Horowitz now works, had been heavily recruiting Dickerson. With this move, Dickerson has deftly dissed both Web giants. Well done, Chad! [TechCrunch] -
slingshot labs
MySpace incubator succeeds at reeling in wayward employee
Little has been heard from Slingshot Labs, the startup "incubator" News Corp. formed in February, in the months since its creation. The $15 million fund for spinoff ventures did succeed in keeping MySpace CEO Chris DeWolfe in place: We hear that he made it a quid pro quo before signing a new, lucrative contract with Rupert Murdoch. He's not the only MySpace employee Slingshot played a part in keeping down in Los Angeles. We hear Nick Granado, a top engineer behind MySpace's iPhone version, first flirted with a job at Facebook, then worked briefly at Imeem, before getting lured back with a gig at Slingshot. More » -
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blaine cook
Yahoo hires controversial Twitter architect for troubled project
Whatever side you're on, everyone agrees that Twitter's problems with downtime come down to one man: Blaine Cook. Cook's advocates claim he was hobbled from fixing the site by incompetent managers; Cook's detractors say his decisions as Twitter's chief architect led to its frequent outages. We'd heard he left Twitter with plans to relocate to the U.K. Instead, we've learned, he took a job at Yahoo's Brickhouse, the troubled San Francisco office meant to incubate new projects. He's believed to be working for Chad Dickerson, who recently listed a position for a software engineer experienced in the Ruby programming language — one of Cook's specialties. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by BobDope: Brickhouse cuts itself just so it will feel something, that kind of thing. more » | Other threads
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caption contest
"Okay, you win. Best two out of three? C'mon, bring it!"
TechConfidential's Joshua Jaffe intensely awaits a serve at Yahoo's Brickhouse party for Web 2.0 last night. Suggest your own in the comments. Yesterday's winner: BartKela. (Photo by Brian Solis)
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By Jackson WestComment by Fidel on the Roof: Come on!!! Gimmie a REAL job! more » | Other threads
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real estate
Yahoo Brickhouse office closing?
Is Yahoo shopping the 14,000-sq. ft. space where its Brickhouse incubator sits? Several prospective renters came through on a recent weekend with the building's property manager, a tipster tells Valleywag. With offices now vacant in Sunnyvale, paying for Brickhouse's San Francisco lease surely seems like an unneeded frill. (Photo by Scott Beale/Laughing Squid)
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By Owen ThomasComment by abmw: I pitched six time sat Yahoo to 12 different groups of folks who only texted and played with computers and... more » | Other threads
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careers
Tap your right foot if you want to leave Yahoo
To find Yahoos ready to bolt, recruiters are taking a wide stance. Cake Financial, a startup, occupies the same building in SoMa as Yahoo's San Francisco incubator, Brickhouse. Employees at Cake plastered Yahoo's entrance and building restrooms with fliers, snaps of which we received from a tipster in the building. Wired confirms that, unlike electronic attempts to hunt down restless Yahoos with targeted ads, the restroom campaign has borne fruit in the form of actual résumés. The flier: More » -
exits
Yahoo fires Salim Ismail, far too late
We hear that Bradley Horowitz, Yahoo's advanced-produts czar, has finally fired Salim Ismail, the head of Yahoo's Brickhouse incubator in San Francisco. Today's layoffs likely provided a convenient excuse to get rid of Ismail, a suavely incompetent liar. Ismail, a failed entrepreneur turned failed manager, was good at one thing: Getting press for products his group had not yet launched. We told you so.
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By Owen ThomasComment by Edinburgh: What advance products? Incubators of what? Endless useless products that go no where while getting a fat salary? Whoever come... more » | Other threads
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yahoo
Pay no attention to the layoffs behind the curtain
Desperate to deflect attention from impending layoffs, Yahoo's top management has put pressure on the ranks to deliver some splashy product launches and distract the media. Gullible as the tech press corp is, they'll likely fall for it. A top candidate: Fire Eagle, Yahoo Brickhouse's long-delayed location-data tool. Brickhouse chief Salim Ismail, embarrassingly, has been talking up the project long before it was actually ready; he last promised to deliver it by the end of November. More » -
crime
The taxman cometh to Yahoo
Salim Ismail's incompetence as a manager may have brought the wrath of the IRS down on Yahoo. One of his employees at Brickhouse, Yahoo's San Francisco incubator, has moved abroad while being classified, for tax purposes, as "working at home." There are a number of steps companies ought to take when employing a U.S. citizen living abroad, but Ismail apparently skipped them. Now, one of the employee's coworkers has received a summons from the IRS's Criminal Investigation Division, where are investigators are looking into a case of tax fraud. While any penalties Yahoo might pay are small in comparison to the Web giant's bottom line, they'd certainly speak to the sloppy management that's been given a pass at Yahoo for far too long. (Photo by irisheyes) -
confirmed
Dickerson draws short straw, takes over for Gatz at Yahoo
As we reported first, Yahoo's Scott Gatz confirms he's leaving. Chad Dickerson will move from the Yahoo Developer Network to take over running Advanced Products. This is hardly a promotion for Dickerson; we hear he had a falling out with his boss at the developer group, ex-Microsoftie David Sobeski. Dickerson is now in charge of someday making Fire Eagle a real product. He also gets to work oh so closely with professional conference attendee Salim Ismail. And that brings us to our career advice for Dickerson. More »
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Comment by tokemak: This says a lot more about Sobeski, who is useless even during those rare occasions when he bothers to show... more » | Other threads
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rumormonger
Scott Gatz escapes Yahoo Brickhouse
Rumor has it Scott Gatz, the brain behind Yahoo's search strategy earlier in the decade, more recently heading up part of Bradley Horowitz's Advanced Products Group, will leave Yahoo at the end of the year. Our source, who claims to have failed in trying to hire away Gatz in the past, tells us Gatz always professed to be happy at Yahoo. Apparently that's changed. Why? More »
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Comment by macbeach: Could the reason be that the company hasn't done anything interesting since... I can't think of anything. The only thing the company... more » | Other threads
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brickhouse
Can Salim Ismail locate reality at Yahoo?
A press tour is oft the last refuge of a scoundrel. Salim Ismail, the pushy head of Yahoo's Brickhouse incubator in San Francisco and newest Silicon Valley Tool, is still talking up Fire Eagle, an admittedly useful software tool for broadcasting one's location to websites. Never mind that Fire Eagle isn't actually ready, and that Ismail's still omitting any mention of Tom Coates, the project lead. Smartly, Ismail is peddling his tale to gullible New York journalists at outlets like BusinessWeek, for whom Silicon Valley must seem too far away to bother with factchecking. More »
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By Owen ThomasComment by terran: Fair enough. He's gotten some press. But your coverage of him still reads as overly ad hominem. Slam his performance,... more » | Other threads
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valleywag calendar
Game shows and lectures
Go to a game show with your favorite videobloggers, get all scholarly, or spy on Yahoo's new digs, all in tonight's Valleywag Calendar. More » -
silicon valley tool
Yahoo Brickhouse exec in the doghouse
When you can't take market share, take credit. That's the unspoken motto of Yahoo since Google overshadowed the Web pioneer, and no one has mastered the art like Salim Ismail, the desperately unpopular VP in charge of Yahoo Brickhouse, the San Francisco incubator charged with inventing the company's future. One Yahoo insider calls him "notoriously slimy," and points to Ismail's recent announcement of Fire Eagle as an example of how Valleywag's latest and lamest Silicon Valley Tool does his work. More » -
valleywag calendar
Talks talks talks
Have a Mighty mobile meetup, interface intelligently, or talk to some real rocket scientists in today's Valleywag Calendar. More » -
yahoo
Escape from the Brickhouse
Earlier today, we asked about Yahoo's Brickhouse — the ostensible incubator of innovation in San Francisco's South Park charged with reviving Yahoo's reputation for Web cool. Departures from the Pipes project, the only notable product release from Brickhouse, raised questions about the operation. Brickhouse head Bradley Horowitz thinks his group is "thriving," but a recent ex-Brickhouse employee reports otherwise. His complaints range from the petty (the office "smelled like dirty socks") to the more troubling (Horowitz, he claims, "suffers from god syndrome and needs to get over himself"). The full email, after the jump. More »
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Comment by fatbastard: There is (or at least used to be) a modeling agency in that same building.... I think they should kick... more » | Other threads
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exits
What's up at Yahoo Brickhouse?
Remember Yahoo Pipes, the "interactive feed aggregator and manipulator" — in other words, a website meant to help people build simple Web applications? It launched to some fanfare last February, with many taking it as a sign of Yahoo getting its mojo back. We hear that the project is starting to "implode," as our tipsters says, with most of its upper-level people looking to get out. Already gone, Wired's Epicenter notes, are the two cofounders of the project, Pasha Sadri, who left to pursue a "personal project," and Edward Ho, who just joined rival Google. Pipes was the first major release out of Yahoo's Brickhouse, the company's San Francisco-based startup-idea incubator. That Brickhouse's door is revolving so swiftly after six short months isn't a good omen to us. So, how are the rest of Brickhouse's projects faring? If you've heard anything, please fill us in.
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Comment by sggrf: Another bad data point in the sad Yahoo saga. How can things get worse for these guys? This is precisely... more » | Other threads
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