Today, Yahoo leaders — all of them in two different memos — took to the keyboards to fill their 14,000 employees in on what’s up.

Reading them, Yahoos must now be more confused than ever.

To summarize: Yahoo is for sale, sort of. But we’re taking it slow, because we always like to drag out the uncertainty here at Sunnyvale HQ. Hey, keep working hard and innovating, despite the still-matrixed system. But don’t fret that your job and career hang in the balance. And have a good weekend!

In the first email, Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock and co-founders David Filo and Jerry Yang — also a director — penned a rambling missive, which finally admitted the company was indeed, as was first reported here, for sale.

Yahoo said hired-gun investment advisor, Allen & Co., was “fielding inquiries from multiple parties that have already expressed interest in a number of potential options.”

Not to be a niggler, but didn’t Yang tell the troops at an all-hands meeting recently that Yahoo was not for sale?

Details! Thus, said the memo, until the company sorts out all the offers just pouring in — not so much, but when you’re selling a house, you put on the dog — Yahoos had to keep working hard.

Therefore: “What Yahoo! needs to do better — and we’ve talked about this — is accelerate innovation, reignite inspiration, and give our users what they want now — great content that is engaging and easy-to-use on any device and provides an experience in which they can participate and contribute. Perhaps most importantly, we need to anticipate what they will want next.”

You’ve. Talked. About. This. You mean to try to make cool stuff like every other tech company — Apple, Facebook, Google — already does? Mind-blowing.

After a little throat-clearing on its fake search for a new permanent CEO and some media-bashing (yes, this all my fault!), the memo noted that all this fancy strategery is going to take “months, not weeks.”

(Is it just me or does it feel as though former CEO Carol Bartz was fired a badillion years ago, instead of just weeks ago? Plus, I actually believe I officially now miss her kooky-but-genuine Friday staff emails.)

The Gang of Three email was followed by one from the incredible shrinking interim CEO Tim Morse, who said Yahoo was not in “limbo,” due to all this obvious limboness about the strategy.

“That means we will not be sitting still over the next few months,” Morse wrote. “We are actively making decisions and taking action.”

In other words, nothing to see here. Except everything.

Oh, I give up — just read for yourselves:

Dear Yahoos:

In our recent all hands meeting, we talked about the Board’s strategic review to help return the Company to a path of robust growth and industry-leading innovation. While our teams are working to evaluate the many opportunities by which Yahoo! can continue building on our success, all kinds of people have been — and will continue — speculating in the media about where that work is headed, so we thought it best to provide you with some additional context directly from those of us who are closest to it. We don’t have specific news to share with you today, but we are committed to communicating with you directly from time to time — especially given the level of external swirl — so that you know where we are in the process. You can expect periodic updates from us and we encourage you to communicate with us as well.

At the heart of what we are doing is our belief that Yahoo!’s core strengths are not only relevant to where users are going today, but can serve as a foundation for the next phase of our company’s growth. Consider our strengths: we have 680 million users worldwide. We have nine of the #1 properties in the U.S., and we are a leader in display advertising. Our brand is iconic — we are not the only ones who bleed purple. By whatever measure you want to use — engagement, quality of products and services, our value to our advertisers — we all feel that we have what it takes to succeed. Also, our Asia assets remain one of our top priorities and we continue to work well with the teams there. As you may have seen, Alibaba Group has just announced a liquidity event for its employees that reflects a continued appreciation in its value, and therefore of the value of our stake.

What Yahoo! needs to do better — and we’ve talked about this — is accelerate innovation, reignite inspiration, and give our users what they want now — great content that is engaging and easy-to-use on any device and provides an experience in which they can participate and contribute. Perhaps most importantly, we need to anticipate what they will want next. That is the path to enhancing the value of Yahoo! for all of its stakeholders, including its users, customers, shareholders, partners and Yahoos everywhere. Our strategic review is designed to help us map out the best way to achieve that.

At this point, we cannot offer many specifics about the Board’s review; we’ve just gotten started. You should know that the entire Board and management team are fully aligned and unanimous in their views regarding the scope of this work. Allen & Company was a logical choice to help us in this review, because they have been one of our advisers for some time, and this is familiar territory for them. Achieving success in our sector is intrinsic to what they do for a living, and they will be constructive partners.

Our advisers are working with us to develop ideas that we will pursue proactively. At the same time, they are fielding inquiries from multiple parties that have already expressed interest in a number of potential options. We will take the time we need to select and structure the best approach for the company, its shareholders and employees.

In addition, as we announced previously, the Board has commenced a search for a permanent Chief Executive Officer. That process also continues.

When we have updates that we can share we will do so. There will be plenty of rumors and speculation as different parties try to advance their agendas in the media — but it is important that we not be distracted by the rumors and speculation.

You are instrumental to the success of our business — we can’t do it without you. While we will move with a sense of urgency, this process will take time. Months, not weeks. We know that’s a lot of potential distraction, but we believe it will be worth the wait. We are forging a path to a next phase of growth for Yahoo! that feels like our best days: fun, full of possibility, and always in search of how to deliver the new thing people want from us. Together, we can write the next great chapter in the Yahoo! story and secure our place as one of those rarities: an internet company that endures.

Jerry
Roy
David

Yahoos,

I’m sure by now you’ve all seen the note from Jerry, David and Roy. I want you to know that while the Board works through all of our options, CEO Staff and I have been charged to move the company forward.

That means we will not be sitting still over the next few months. We are actively making decisions and taking action.

In fact, for three days this week, CEO staff and I met to do just that. Our planning for 2012 is well underway, and we continue to execute on our current plans — such as our Social Chrome announcement this week. (I want to make sure to give a big shout out to the team behind it; it’s getting some great press.)

You see, the Board is confident we can execute our current game plan in the short term. We’ve done some truly great work on updating the foundation of Yahoo!, and we’ve got some good things in the immediate pipeline. So, the Board’s focus is where it should be — on our long-term outlook, and how we best position ourselves to be successful in 3-5 years.

We need a flexible, visionary plan. That’s why the Board is actively looking at all the options available to put Yahoo! on a strong trajectory.

That being said, while the Board makes this decision, it does not mean we are in limbo. We have to keep Yahoo! moving ahead. And to do that, there are three things I need Yahoos everywhere to focus on:

1. Speed: Emphasize quick execution and decision-making

2. Accountability: Do what you say you’re going to do — and take ownership for time to market, monetization, user engagement, quality, or whatever metric defines success for your team

3. Purpose: Rally behind our mission and purpose: creating deeply personal digital experiences.

In the meantime, we will keep you updated as much as we can. And we will earn your trust — we know we have to.

Have a good weekend.

Tim

Microsoft–furious over a recent talent grab of its top advertising exec by Facebook–has been considering a wide range of options, including legal action to block the move, according to sources close to the situation.

Lawyer at both companies have been in back-and-forth talks in recent days after the hiring of Microsoft’s global ad sales head Carolyn Everson by the Silicon Valley social networking powerhouse to be its VP of global sales.

Among the more likely solutions being discussed: Barring Everson–a longtime ad sales exec who came to Microsoft from MTV Networks–from using any strategic information she learned at the company and also from contacting certain ad clients on behalf of Facebook for a certain period of time.

While a legal action to stop her from actually taking the position is the most serious option, it is certainly not without precedent for Microsoft. The company recently got a temporary restraining order to block one of its top government relations execs, Matt Miszewski, from working at Salesforce.com, pointing to non-compete and confidentiality contracts.

Whatever happens, it is clear the Everson hiring has infuriated Microsoft execs, especially CEO Steve Ballmer, since the company regards Facebook as a close partner. Microsoft is also a longtime investor in Facebook.

While considering a temporary restraining order against Everson in this kind of situation–since it is essentially the same job–is standard operating procedure for any company, several sources said tensions are higher than usual.

“This is just tone deaf on Facebook’s part not to think this would not be a problem,” said one person.

One particularly irksome aspect–top Facebook execs did not call Ballmer before news of the appointment leaked out to assuage the situation.

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg did release a statement when BoomTown broke news of the move in mid-February, in an attempt to make nice.

“Microsoft was one of our earliest partners and is still one of our most valued,” she said, in part. “We look forward to continuing to expand our relationship with them.”

Her dulcet words have apparently not worked.

In fact, the talent raid came as a surprise to many at Microsoft, especially since Everson (pictured here) had been hired in June after a long search and had become a high-profile presence at internal and external Microsoft events.

That included organizing the splashy “Imagine 2011, Microsoft Advertising’s Marketing Leadership Summit.” The event is set to take place at the end of March at the software giant’s Redmond, Wa. HQ and will include an evening concert by the band Train.

Now she will be doing such things for Facebook, where Everson will be replacing longtime and well-regarded ad exec Mike Murphy, who left the Palo Alto, Calif., company last fall. She will report to former Googler David Fischer, VP of Advertising and Global Operations.

Having a top exec who is amenable to and well known by Madison Avenue is key for Facebook as it ramps up its business, in anticipation of an IPO next year.

Despite being private, Facebook has recently been valued at between $50 and $60 billion by investors, who have been eagerly buying up shares of the company on secondary markets.

Under Murphy and Fischer, ad sales have been doing well already. Facebook’s share of online display advertising has more than quadrupled, from about three percent to almost 14 percent of the nearly $9 billion U.S. market, according to a recent survey.

In growing so quickly, Facebook has grabbed ad revenue–reportedly $2 billion last year–from old online powerhouses, especially Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL, and is also in a big fight with Google over premium ad sales.

Facebook’s surging usage and engagement are the reasons for the increased interest from advertisers, as well as its global growth in both market share and mindshare of consumers.

The opportunity at Facebook is clearly a big–and probably irresistible–move for the dynamic Everson, who has mostly worked in the mainstream media for much of her career.

Still, while movement of execs among top tech companies is not uncommon, there has been a lot less from Microsoft to Facebook.

Instead, Facebook has been most aggressive in its efforts to attract talent from Google.

No longer. In fact, the week before Facebook grabbed Everson, it also hired an up-and-coming exec, Chris Daniels, GM of Bing Mobile Product Management, to be its director of business development.

Still, there is some hiring war history between the companies. In late 2008, Microsoft’s Ballmer managed to lure former Yahoo exec Qi Lu to run its Online Services Division, several sources at both companies said, after he had told Facebook he would work there as its engineering lead. Lu had also been heavily recruited by Google.

Eventually, that was water under the bridge, which is what Facebook is hoping will happen with Microsoft over Everson.

Also important in the weighing of options at Microsoft is the obvious importance of keeping up good relations with Facebook. It is an important partnership, especially for its Bing search business, as an advantage over Google.

“Everyone is hoping to resolve this amicably,” said one person close to the situation. “There has been some damage to the relationship for sure, but the question is whether Microsoft wants to do something that would escalate that damage.”

Not surprisingly, both Facebook and Microsoft declined to comment on the fracas.

A 16-year Microsoft veteran, Weber held a variety of senior executive positions in sales, marketing and professional services before leaving to start his own consulting business.

His new gig as Nokia president and head of Markets, North America begins today as does Louison’s pursuit of “new career opportunities.”

COMPLETE COVERAGE:

• Nokia’s Stephen Elop Talks to Mobilized About the Big Microsoft Deal (Video)
• Massive Layoffs Expected at Nokia
• Nokia’s Microsoft Partnership: Does the New Strategy Add Up?
• Live From the Nokia-Microsoft Press Conference: It’s a Windows Phone World After All
• More From Nokia: Forecast Gets Cloudy, Plus Expected Executive Changes
• Nokia-Microsoft: What Steve Ballmer and Stephen Elop Have to Say in Their Joint Letter
• Nokia Confirms Microsoft Partnership With YouTube Video
• R&D Spending: Nokia Vs. Apple Shows Size Doesn’t Matter
• Not Seeing Much Return on That Massive R&D Spend, Are You, Nokia?
• Nokia: Big and Slow

BoomTown usually does not get all weepy over the departure of public relations folks at Internet companies, in that cynical I’ve-seen-’em-come-and-I’ve-seen-’em-go kind of way.

But the leaving of Brandee Barker (pictured here) from Facebook most certainly elicited a small single tear of sadness this morning, when she called into All Things Digital Global HQ to say she would no longer be tossing me her patented–and very endearing–hand-in-the-face “no comment” for the powerful social networking site.

After four long and tumultuous years, she leaves the company on Dec. 10.

(In a changing-of-the-guard theme, Barker follows longtime advertising sales exec Mike Murphy, who also recently resigned, out the door.)

In a statement, Facebook said:

“We can confirm Brandee is leaving Facebook to start a communications consulting business focused on early stage tech companies. We are grateful for her dedication and the company has benefited greatly from her contributions. We suspect Brandee’s future clients will also value her talents and experience and we wish her much success with her new venture.”

Indeed, although the geeks always get the credit, Facebook owes an awful lot to Barker, for helping its products and services stand out in a sea of competitors.

For certain, it was not as influential as it is today when Barker got there as its head of PR, just as the start-up was beginning to make itself known.

There were only seven million Facebook members when Barker joined, compared to 500 million today.

Still, the veteran communications exec was quickly aware of its power when 750,000 of those members protested against Facebook’s introduction of the initially controversial news feed.

“I had no idea when I took the job that it would be like that,” said Barker, who was employee No. 120 at Facebook, in an Interview with me this morning.

In fact, it has been like that ever since then, as she has navigated a series of triumphs and just as many mishaps for the company as it grew and grew.

One of her favorite moments, she told me, was the introduction of the Facebook platform at its inaugural F8 developers event several years ago.

“Mark [Zuckerberg] had a real vision and the craziness that followed it was an incredible experience,” said Barker, who was the one largely responsible for introducing the decidedly quirky co-founder and CEO of Facebook to the world.

For the most part, Barker shepherded him well, even as the fire hose of attention increased in media, consumer and regulatory pressure over issues ranging from the controversial founding of Facebook–Barker has a masters from Harvard University in Winklevii crisis management–to privacy snafus and more.

A lot of her ministrations were funny, though, as she remembered: “Another great moment was when I insisted Mark take a suitcase instead of a backpack to his first Davos in 2007, so I went out and bought him one.”

And let us not even get into the flip-flop controversies or when I snarkily called Zuckerberg “toddler CEO” to Lesley Stahl on “60 Minutes.”

Barker handled it all with grace and humor.

But as Facebook has grown to more than 1,500 employees and its business has boomed, Barker–who recently returned to the company after having a baby–decided that bigger was not better, at least for her.

“I had a pretty deep evaluation when I was away from the company that what I am good at and what I like is working with early-stage companies and their teams,” said Barker, who will start a communications consultancy. “At this point in my career, that’s what I want to do.”

Barker noted, in fact, that there were a lot of companies started by former early Facebook employees like her that might become clients, although she declined to be more specific.

In the end, another “no comment” for me from Barker!

I don’t mind, because here is my comment, on the record and for attribution: It’s a sad day for Facebook, and I’ll miss Brandee Barker very much.

Speaking of no comment, here is Barker in one of my favorite no comments, from behind a plant at a 2008 Silicon Valley luncheon for the German DLD conference:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20101108/brandee-no-comment-barker-finally-comments-pr-honcho-leaving-facebook/feed/ 6 http://allthingsd.com/20100830/the-right-kind-of-ambition/ http://allthingsd.com/20100830/the-right-kind-of-ambition/#comments Mon, 30 Aug 2010 17:50:21 +0000 Ben Horowitz http://voices.allthingsd.com/?p=28972 “Some say that I’m they favorite
But I aint hearing none of that
I’m about my team ho
Young money running back”
—Drake

“Stay in your place
While I sit here and rule
I’m king of a cow
And I’m king of a mule”
—Yertle the Turtle

In my last post, I mentioned that you should strive to hire people with the right kind of ambition. Surprisingly to me, I received a large number of responses from readers questioning whether or not this was good advice. Here’s how one commenter phrased it:

I agree with much of this post but I disagree with the following:
“As defined by Andy Grove, the right kind of ambition is ambition for the company’s success with the executive’s own success only coming as a by-product of the company’s victory.”
That may have worked in the past but I believe today, the company’s success and the executive’s success should go hand in hand, not one coming as a by-product of the other, particularly as described above.
Curious why should an employee be motivated first by a company’s success? Would this work in all departments—i.e. sales?
In addition to comments like the one above, my business partner Marc Andreessen suggested that I write a post on how to screen for the right kind of ambition. In response, this post aims to clarify why you should care about senior managers having the right kind of ambition and give some tips on how to screen for them in an interview.

Why should senior managers have the right kind of ambition?
At a macro level, a company will be most successful if the senior managers optimize for the company’s success (think of this as a global optimization) as opposed to their own personal success (local optimization). No matter how well the CEO designs the personal incentive programs, they will never be perfect. In addition, career incentives like promotions and territory ownership fall outside the scope of bonus plans and other a priori management tools. In an equity-based compensation structure, optimizing for the company’s success should yield better results for individuals as well. As my Opsware head of sales Mark Cranney used to say, “Two percent of zero is zero.”

It is particularly important that managers have the right kind of ambition, because anything else will be exceptionally de-motivating for their employees. As an employee, why would I want to work long hours to advance the career of my manager? If the manager cares about his career more than the company, then that’s what I’d be doing. Nothing motivates a great employee more than a mission that’s so important that it supersedes everyone’s personal ambition. As a result, managers with the right kind of ambition tend to be radically more valuable than those with the wrong kind. For a complete explanation of the dangers of managers with the wrong kind of ambition, I strongly recommend Dr. Suess’s management masterpiece Yertle the Turtle.

Screening for the right kind of ambition
As with any complex character trait, there is no way to perfectly screen for the right kind of ambition in an interview, but hopefully some of these thoughts will prove useful.

At a macro-level, everybody views the world through her own personal prism. When interviewing candidates, it’s helpful to watch for small distinctions that indicate whether they view the world through the “me” prism or the “team” prism.

People who view the world through the me prism might describe a prior company’s failure in an interview as follows: “My last job was my e-commerce play. I felt that it was important to round out my resume.” Note the use of “my” to personalize the company in a way that it’s unlikely that anyone else at the company would agree with. In fact, the other employees in the company might even be offended by this usage. People with the right kind of ambition would not likely use the word “play” to describe their effort to work as a team to build something substantial. Finally, people who use the “me” prism find it natural and obvious to speak in terms of “building out my resume” while people who use the “team” prism find such phrases to be somewhat uncomfortable and awkward, because they clearly indicate an individual goal which is separate from the team goal.

On the other hand, people who view the world purely through the team prism will very seldom use the words “I” or “me” even when answering questions about their accomplishments. Even in an interview, they will deflect credit to others on their previous team. They will tend to be far more interested in how your company will win than how they will be compensated or what their career path will be. When asked about a previously failed company, they will generally feel such great responsibility that they will describe in detail their own misjudgments and bad decisions.

When we hired the head of worldwide sales for Opsware, using this screen proved to be quite valuable. We interviewed over 20 candidates for the position before hiring the aforementioned Mark Cranney. Since this was a sales position, I should mention (in reference to the commenter above) that ambition for the company above ones own goals is particularly important for the head of sales. The reasons are many:

• The local incentives in sales are particularly strong and difficult to balance without the right kind of leadership
• The sales organization is the face of the company to the outside world. If that group optimizes for itself, your company will have a major problem
• In hi-tech companies, fraud generally starts in sales due to managers attempting to perfect the ultimate local optimization

Throughout our interview process, candidates would take sole credit for landing extremely large deals, achieving impressive goals, and generating company success. Invariably, the candidates who claimed the most credit for deals would have the most difficult time describing the details of how the deal was actually won and orchestrated. During reference checks, others involved in the deals would tell a much different story.

When I spoke to Mark, on the other hand, it was difficult to get him to discuss his personal accomplishments. In fact, some of the other interviewers felt that Mark was standoffish and even obnoxious in the way he bristled at certain questions. One interviewer complained: “Ben, I know that he increased the size of the Nike deal from $1M to $5M, because our contact at Nike told me that, but Mark wouldn’t go into any detail on it.” When I interviewed Mark, he really only wanted to discuss how his old company PTC won. He went into great detail about how his team diagnosed weaknesses vs. the competition and how he worked with the CTO Hugh Hempleman to advance the product. He then talked about how he worked with the CEO Dick Harrison to revise the way the sales force was trained and organized.

When the conversation turned to Opsware, Mark had already interviewed sales reps at our number one competitor’s company and knew what deals they were in. He relentlessly questioned me on how we were going to win the deals that they were in and how we planned to get into the deals that we weren’t in. He wanted to know the strengths and weaknesses of everyone else on the team. He wanted to know the game plan for winning. The topics of his potential compensation and career advancement didn’t come up until the very end of the process. And then he only wanted assurances that compensation was performance and not politically based. It was clear that Mark was all about the team.

During Mark’s tenure, sales increased more than tenfold and our market capitalization increased twentyfold. More to the point, voluntary attrition in the sales organization was extremely low, customers were managed fairly and honestly, and our legal and finance teams often commented that first and foremost, Mark protected the company.

Final Thought
While it may work to have individual employees who optimize for their own careers, counting on senior managers to do all the right things for all the wrong reasons is a dangerous idea.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100830/the-right-kind-of-ambition/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100621/can-two-tech-exec-candidates-in-california-compute-with-voters/ http://allthingsd.com/20100621/can-two-tech-exec-candidates-in-california-compute-with-voters/#comments Mon, 21 Jun 2010 19:00:06 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=29556

While there have been politicians running for office in California before who have worked in the tech sector, there’s no doubt that the prospects for two of Silicon Valley’s more prominent execs–Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman–represent an unusual and interesting situation in the state’s history.

With the tech sector a beacon of hope in a very rough economy and a symbol of health compared with a debt-saddled government, it’s no surprise that both candidates are touting their time as CEOs of two of California’s better known digital giants.

Whitman ran eBay (EBAY) and Fiorina helmed Hewlett-Packard (HPQ).

And, as they both did in their Republican primary races, they’re pushing that business experience very hard.

“Career politicians in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., be warned: You now face your worst nightmare,” said Whitman in her victory speech after winning the GOP primary for governor, referring to herself and Fiorina, who is vying for a Senate seat. “Two businesswomen from the real world who know how to create jobs, balance budgets and get things done.”

But will their narrative of outsider, maverick, high-tech corporate execs versus entrenched career politicians–Democratic candidates Jerry Brown and Sen. Barbara Boxer, who are facing Whitman and Fiorina respectively–play well with voters, and, more importantly, how accurate is their depiction as can-do techies?

That’s something to pay attention to, since a lot will surely be riding on their golden portrayal as business successes in the Golden State versus their opponents’ ability to paint a more cloddish picture of their corporate tenures.

And, just from a quick reading of their Web sites, both Fiorina and Whitman have to tread very carefully.

For example, the bio for Fiorina on her site notes:

“Carly served as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Hewlett-Packard Company from 1999 to 2005, leading the reinvention of the legendary company, successfully steering it through the dot-com bust and the worst technology recession in 25 years. During her tenure, HP’s revenues doubled, from $44 billion to $88 billion, with improved profitability in every product category. Today, HP is the largest technology company in the world.”

That certainly–and not surprisingly–leaves out the layoffs, the myriad controversies over her leadership and, as has been depicted in much press coverage and several books, her none-too-smooth heave-ho from HP with a big fat exit payout to cushion the blow.

In fact, it has been current CEO Mark Hurd who has deservedly gotten a lot of the credit for getting HP moving again.

In addition, while HP is certainly the largest tech company in terms of employees, it is nowhere near the largest in terms of anything else that counts, such as stock market valuation.

HP’s market cap is currently $112 billion, compared with $230 billion for Microsoft (MSFT), $251 billion for Apple (AAPL) and even $168 billion for IBM (IBM).

On her Web site, the tale of Whitman is also rich in wow:

“At eBay, Meg made history. Meg steered eBay through the dot-com rise and fall that saw the vast majority of high-flying start-ups crash and burn, while eBay turned in one quarter of dramatic growth after another. When she joined eBay, the company had just $4.7 million in revenues and 30 employees; when she retired in March of 2008, ten years later, the company had nearly $8 billion in revenues and 15,000 employees worldwide–with millions of users in California alone.”

It’s all pretty much true, and throwing in California auction fans is a nice touch, too.

But it also leaves out a laundry list of problems Whitman left behind, from eBay’s slowness to innovate after its initial success, thereby almost totally missing Web 2.0, to its struggles to reinvigorate its main market business to a series of questionable acquisitions–Skype calling!–made in her decade in charge.

To be fair, any CEO tenure is a mixed bag, and there is not one tech exec who has not presided over a disaster or two.

That said, if both Fiorina and Whitman are selling themselves as Silicon Valley wunderkinds who can fix what’s broke in California, they are going to have to get ready to defend their business records over the next five months just the same as the career pols they are aiming to unseat.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100621/can-two-tech-exec-candidates-in-california-compute-with-voters/feed/ 5 http://allthingsd.com/20100203/yahoo-unloads-hotjobs-on-monster-for-225-million/ http://allthingsd.com/20100203/yahoo-unloads-hotjobs-on-monster-for-225-million/#comments Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:43:45 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=34184 Apparently, Yahoo’s efforts to sell off some of its noncore properties are going quite a bit better than previously thought. Moments ago, the company said it will sell Yahoo HotJobs to Monster Worldwide (MWW), proprietor of rival online career site Monster.com. Price: $225 million in cash.

The deal, which is expected to close in the third quarter, involves a three-year traffic agreement under which Monster will become the provider of career and job content on the Yahoo (YHOO) homepage in the U.S. and Canada.

Obviously a smart move for Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz, who has been trying to narrow the company’s focus to its core portal business–most recently by selling email technology provider Zimbra to VMware (VMW).

Now, if only Bartz can unload Yahoo Games and Yahoo Shopping.

The release, below.

Monster to Acquire HotJobs Business and Enter into Multi-year Traffic Agreement with Yahoo!
NEW YORK & MAYNARD, Mass., Feb 03, 2010 —— Monster Worldwide, Inc. (MWW 16.42, +0.38, +2.37%) announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the assets of Yahoo! HotJobs, a leading online recruitment website, from Yahoo! (YHOO 15.46, +0.29, +1.91%) for $225 million in cash. Monster and Yahoo! have also entered into a three year commercial traffic agreement, to take effect upon the closing of the acquisition, in which Monster will become Yahoo!‘s provider of career and job content on the Yahoo! homepage in the United States and Canada. The traffic agreement calls for performance based annual payments calculated by clicks and expressions of interest, subject to annual floors and ceilings. In addition, the traffic agreement provides Monster with an exclusive right for a period of time following the closing of the acquisition to negotiate similar traffic agreements with Yahoo! properties on a global basis, including countries in Europe, Asia and Latin America, subject to certain limitations.

“HotJobs with its significant customer base plus the traffic agreement are an ideal complement to Monster’s innovative recruitment solutions and global reach,” said Sal Iannuzzi, chairman, chief executive officer and president of Monster Worldwide. “These agreements, combined with Monster’s career Communities and our recently introduced 6Sense(TM) semantic search technology, will bring substantial new benefits for employers seeking more qualified candidates and job seekers searching for more relevant opportunities across a wider range of industries—globally.”

“Bringing together Monster and HotJobs creates even greater access and opportunities for both recruiters and job seekers,” said Hilary Schneider, EVP, Yahoo! (NSDQ: YHOO). “The transaction with Monster enables us to continue to provide an important service to our users through the traffic agreement. Yahoo! remains focused on its core businesses and delivering exceptional experiences to users, partners and advertisers.”

Monster believes that the acquisition of HotJobs and the traffic agreement with Yahoo! will provide a number of benefits to jobseekers and employers, who today have more diverse competitive choices than ever before, and a value to all of its stakeholders, including its shareholders. These include:

Anticipated increase in job matches and search efficiencies–By bringing more diverse job and career opportunities, tools and resources together in one place, employers and job seekers will enjoy greater convenience and more precise search results and better matches with Monster’s patented 6Sense(TM) search technology and other innovative products.

Expected expansion of job seeker pool for employers–Monster will be able to offer its employers a significantly larger pool of candidates across diverse geographies and industries. Based on Media Metrix comScore (NSDQ: SCOR) reporting, last year HotJobs averaged 12.6 million unique visitors per month.

Expected expansion of the number of job postings across industries for job seekers–Through the combination of Monster and HotJobs job postings, job seekers will have access to more job opportunities in one place in those industries currently leading job creation, including healthcare, finance and insurance, retail, manufacturing, information and wholesale trade.

Broader reach anticipated for recruitment advertising through additional media alliances and reseller agreement–With the addition of HotJobs’s network of more than 600 daily and weekly newspapers, Monster’s alliances with local papers will grow to a total of approximately 1,000, giving Monster reach in all 50 states. The additional newspaper alliances, through their online and print classified ads, will further Monster’s current strategy of connecting job seekers with smaller, local businesses, particularly in healthcare, education, and skilled and hourly job categories.

Yahoo! will continue to manage its broader Newspaper Consortium (NPC) partnership, including providing both search and display advertising, content distribution, and its ad-serving platform, to newspapers in its NPC.

The transaction is subject to clearance under Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act and other customary closing conditions. The transaction is currently expected to close sometime during the third quarter of 2010, subject to regulatory review. Monster expects to realize operating synergies from the acquisition and currently anticipates the transaction will be breakeven on a pro forma full year earnings in 2010 and accretive thereafter, inclusive of the costs incurred under the traffic agreement.

Stone Key Partners LLC and Bank of America Merrill Lynch acted as financial advisors to Monster in connection with this transaction. Allen & Company LLC provided a fairness opinion to Monster’s Board.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100203/yahoo-unloads-hotjobs-on-monster-for-225-million/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20100203/monster-devours-hotjobs/ http://allthingsd.com/20100203/monster-devours-hotjobs/#comments Wed, 03 Feb 2010 21:00:46 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=34210

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100203/monster-devours-hotjobs/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090501/but-that-%e2%80%9cpeople-familiar-with-the-matter%e2%80%9d-stuff-ain%e2%80%99t-gonna-fly-here/ http://allthingsd.com/20090501/but-that-%e2%80%9cpeople-familiar-with-the-matter%e2%80%9d-stuff-ain%e2%80%99t-gonna-fly-here/#comments Fri, 01 May 2009 11:55:55 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=16744 Business journalists who had their careers curtailed by the souring economy might consider stopping by the Securities and Exchange Commission on their next trip to the unemployment office. The agency may have a good use for their talents, according to Chairman Mary Schapiro, who finds the sadly diminished ranks of the business press worrisome. “I think financial journalists have in many cases been the sources of some really important enforcement cases and really important discovery of practices and products that regulators should be profoundly concerned about,” she said in remarks to the Reuters Global Financial Regulation Summit this week. “Investigative journalism actually would be a pretty interesting skill set for us to have. We’ve talked about financial analysis, we’ve talked about forensic accounting being skill sets that we really need–understanding of complex trading, strategies and systems, but it’s one of the things the SEC has to do. It has to really broaden its horizons and bring in people who think about things a little differently than it has historically.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090501/but-that-%e2%80%9cpeople-familiar-with-the-matter%e2%80%9d-stuff-ain%e2%80%99t-gonna-fly-here/feed/ 2 http://allthingsd.com/20090501/but-that-%e2%80%9cpeople-familiar-with-the-matter%e2%80%9d-stuff-ain%e2%80%99t-gonna-fly-here-2/ http://allthingsd.com/20090501/but-that-%e2%80%9cpeople-familiar-with-the-matter%e2%80%9d-stuff-ain%e2%80%99t-gonna-fly-here-2/#comments Fri, 01 May 2009 11:55:55 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=16744 Business journalists who had their careers curtailed by the souring economy might consider stopping by the Securities and Exchange Commission on their next trip to the unemployment office. The agency may have a good use for their talents, according to Chairman Mary Schapiro, who finds the sadly diminished ranks of the business press worrisome. “I think financial journalists have in many cases been the sources of some really important enforcement cases and really important discovery of practices and products that regulators should be profoundly concerned about,” she said in remarks to the Reuters Global Financial Regulation Summit this week. “Investigative journalism actually would be a pretty interesting skill set for us to have. We’ve talked about financial analysis, we’ve talked about forensic accounting being skill sets that we really need–understanding of complex trading, strategies and systems, but it’s one of the things the SEC has to do. It has to really broaden its horizons and bring in people who think about things a little differently than it has historically.”

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090501/but-that-%e2%80%9cpeople-familiar-with-the-matter%e2%80%9d-stuff-ain%e2%80%99t-gonna-fly-here-2/feed/ 0