A lot of technically incompetent managers exist who do not know how to drive hard, but know how to build empires.
Pros
Yahoo is still a strong brand, if that is a valid reason to work here. There is still a good amount of talent, so it is good to work with some competent individual contributors. One can get to learn a lot if you are in the right place.
Cons
Senior Management is now more clueless than ever. The state of uncertainty has been the only constant at Yahoo for the past couple of years. This continues to demoralize a lot of employees and one can feel it at the cafeteria. Asking folks to keep at it because that is the best thing to do is so lame. Chief Product Officer Blake may have some vision, but it is more theoretical than actionable. Many people talk about innovation, but an overall strategy is missing. Piecemeal solutions for iPad and other social efforts are not tied to an overall strategy. Even these efforts have stumbled at best. If Blake really means taking bold steps to reach 10-10-10 goals, then the senior leadership needs to take some bold steps and not just talk about them. To execute on such a vision, Yahoo needs leaders - not just managers - who first have the capability to speak the truth and face it. A lot of what is wrong at Yahoo has to do with two main reasons: 1. There are a lot of people in positions where they should not be. There are senior managers in technical positions and they lack the knowledge to lead and drive teams. This blocks everyone and diminishes group performance. These managers continue to exist for a very long time because of their capability to play politics, spread gossips and build their own pyramids. Many managers and their superiors play the "I scratch your back and you scratch mine" during yearly reviews and continue to advance. Yearly reviews are mostly positive because the culture at Yahoo has gone soft and people are generally scared or just don't care to provide negative reviews or as these are better known as "constructive feedback". Either way the reviews continue to be fit people into curves so that compensation can be spread around. This leads to percolating only positive news upstream so that all looks good at least for a while. When things break, as they do there is a subtle finger pointing campaign to wash themselves fo the responsibility. 2. Lack of or broken new product and innovation strategy. Yahoo continues to make money with what it already has. Nothing new has made money for Yahoo for a very long time. Internally, at the lowest level there are a lot of innovative ideas, but no clear way to get them out there. At the highest levels there is a clear lack of product strategy. Blake has talked about some big goals, but they lack an execution strategy. HR depart ment at Yahoo is very detached. There is no concept of employee development and training. Perhaps Yahoo has decided that it will be able to attract top talent for new initiative without having to invest in internal training initiatives.
