14 DAY TRIAL // It's getting really old to talk over and over again about the hot seat that Yahoo! is in right now and the problems that CEO Jerry Yang has with keeping his board together. The thing is that they keep piling up and there's no way to go over or around them to get the accurate image of what is really going on over at the Sunnyvale-based company.
People have left Yahoo! in a hurry these past two weeks, some because they were laid off, some because there was actually nothing left to keep them there. BoomTown reported that late in 2006 Yahoo! started "Project Engage" that included handing out retention packages, full option grants and restricted stock units. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the unluckiest CEO of them all? Yang.
The packages didn't fully vest until the second of February this year. One day after the Microsoft bid. Amidst all the talks of hostile takeover. Short sentences cannot fully capture the effect the combination of the two had on those benefiting from the Project Engage package. Whatever doubts the employees had, based on the eight straight fiscal quarter loss, were amplified exponentially by the bid and the decision to flee like rats from a sinking ship was imminent.
Microsoft must have known about it, as it bled Yahoo! right in the nick of time. One executive from the Sunnyvale-based company told Valleywag that "Everyone was just biding their time for the RSU to vest," and that "the Microsoft bid just gives everyone an excuse to leave."
On related news, after waving bye-bye to a thousand employees, Yahoo! is now hiring almost half that amount. What happened to the cost saving layoffs? Or is it true that they only let go people based on the salary they earned?