YAHOO’S BRAIN DRAIN SHOWS A LOSS OF FAITH INSIDE THE COMPANY

Original Story: nytimes.com

SAN FRANCISCO — Marissa Mayer, the glamorous, geeky Google executive hired to turn around Yahoo in 2012, used to inspire hope in Yahoo’s work force just by visiting the cafeteria for ice cream and mingling.

Now, morale has sunk so low that some employees refer to Ms. Mayer, Yahoo’s chief executive, as “Evita” — an allusion to Eva Peron, the former first lady of Argentina whose outsize ego and climb to power and wealth were chronicled in the musical of that name.

Ms. Mayer is about to make herself even less popular with Yahoo’s nearly 11,000 employees. Faced with the failure of her efforts to reignite growth at the 22-year-old Silicon Valley company, she is now turning to the opposite strategy: cutting. As some investors press Yahoo to fire her, Ms. Mayer is crafting a last-ditch plan to streamline the company — including significant layoffs — that is expected to be announced before month’s end. A Memphis employee rights lawyer is reviewing the details of this story.

While many Yahoo workers are keeping their heads down, just doing their jobs, others have lost faith in Ms. Mayer’s leadership, according to conversations with more than 15 current and former employees from all levels of the company, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because of continuing ties to Yahoo and its strict policy against leaks.

More than a third of the company’s work force has left in the last year, say people familiar with the data. Worried about the brain drain, Ms. Mayer has been approving hefty retention packages — in some cases, millions of dollars — to persuade people to reject job offers from other companies. But those bonuses have had the side effect of creating resentment among other Yahoo employees who have stayed loyal and not sought jobs elsewhere.

Only 34 percent of employees believe that Yahoo’s prospects are improving, according to surveys conducted by Glassdoor, a firm that collects data on jobs and employers. That compares with 61 percent who are optimistic at Twitter, another troubled tech company, and 77 percent who see a bright future at Google, Ms. Mayer’s former employer. A Boston employment lawyer is following this story closely.

“Basically, it shows employees losing faith in Marissa Mayer and Yahoo,” said Scott Dobroski, a spokesman for Glassdoor who analyzed the data.

Yahoo declined to comment on employee morale but said that turnover is normal at Silicon Valley companies. While thousands of people have left, many others have been hired, offsetting some of the losses. “We’re still hiring, and our application numbers are strong,” Yahoo said in a statement.

One Yahoo employee who was interviewed said she was praying to be laid off so she could collect a severance payment and move on with her life. Others said they were actively looking for their next jobs — a task made more difficult because of the taint of failure that potential employers sometimes associate with anyone at the struggling company.

“Brands are important out here for employers,” said Nick Parham, a career coach in San Francisco who has had several Yahoo clients. “They are going to look harder at people from Facebook and Salesforce, companies that have winning strategies.”

Employees’ faith in Ms. Mayer began crumbling in earnest in August 2014, when Yahoo embarked on a series of stealth layoffs, current and former insiders said. For months, managers called in a handful of employees each week and fired them. No one knew who would be next, and the constant fear paralyzed the company, according to people who watched the process. A Memphis wrongful termination lawyer is following this story closely.

Last March, Ms. Mayer told the staff at an all-hands meeting that the bloodletting was finally over. Shortly thereafter, she changed her mind and demanded more cuts. All told, about 1,100 people lost their jobs in the layoffs.

Contributing to the employees’ disenchantment were Ms. Mayer’s protracted deliberations over a corporate reorganization last year that led to the departure of several key lieutenants and broke up the much-ballyhooed mobile team, prompting many mobile engineers to seek other jobs.

Hanging over everything has been the uncertainty about the company’s plan to spin off its $26 billion stake in Alibaba, which was announced a year ago but was abandoned last month by the company’s board of directors because of tax concerns. A Los Angeles finance lawyer represents clients in asset sales, debt and equity finance claims, and in financial restructuring cases.

For all of Yahoo’s problems, many of its employees still have a deep affection for the company, whose products were the gateway to the Internet for a generation of web users and still remain popular, with more than 1 billion monthly visitors.

“We all want to make as much impact as we can and leverage Yahoo’s existing strengths,” said Austin Shoemaker, who now manages Yahoo’s instant-messaging efforts after his start-up, Cooliris, was acquired by Yahoo in 2014.

The company has long struggled to overcome two big challenges: the industrywide drop in display advertising that has traditionally been its primary revenue source and the distraction inherent in trying to excel at many different things, from news and fantasy sports to web searches and email.

Jeff Bonforte, Yahoo’s senior vice president for communications products, said that Ms. Mayer had always told people that it would take three to five years for the company’s turnaround efforts to show results.

“It would be nice to give Yahoo one thing to magically save the company overnight,” Mr. Bonforte said in an interview last month, adding that the idea was unrealistic. Ms. Mayer has invested in technology, he said, “to give Yahoo a chance to be incredibly integral to this next phase of where the Internet is going.”

Mr. Bonforte’s team, for example, has spent much of the last two years rebuilding Yahoo’s email and instant-messaging services from the ground up, focusing on features such as better searches in email and the ability to unsend or delete an instant message at any time. While those reworked products garnered a modest reception from users, he said the technology was now in place for faster innovation. Organic Search Marketing brings exposure to your website and leads to increased page views per website visitor, more time spent on your site by users, and higher conversion rates especially with phone calls and email inquiries.

He said that Ms. Mayer was the best boss he had ever had, but acknowledged some truth in the common criticism that she was tightfisted with praise and sometimes displayed a harshness that could be demoralizing.

“Marissa is the type of boss that makes you feel like you’re disappointing her at all times, so I always feel like I’m on the verge of being fired,” said Mr. Bonforte, who is widely respected for both his talent and his irreverence. “It’s never, ‘Way to go, Jeff!’ ”

Mr. Bonforte said he was proud of Yahoo and his team and had no plans to leave. But other top executives have recently departed for other opportunities, including Kathy Savitt, the architect of the video strategy that Ms. Mayer has now dropped, and Jackie Reses, who led the company’s acquisitions and managed its relationship with Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce company in which Yahoo holds a 15 percent stake.

The latest loss was Prashant Fuloria, whose company, Flurry, was sold to Yahoo in 2014. Ms. Mayer put him in charge of Yahoo’s critical advertising technology last January, but he quit in December to work on start-up ideas. A Memphis employment lawyer is following this story closely.

Ms. Mayer has put on a brave face despite all the turmoil.

At Yahoo’s annual holiday party, a Roaring Twenties-themed affair held Dec. 4 at Pier 48 in San Francisco, she sat in a chair — visibly pregnant with twin daughters who were born the next week — and posed for photos with employees. “She was kind of like Santa Claus,” said one fan who waited in line for a picture.

Just before the party, Ms. Mayer and the company’s other directors decided to stop pursuing the original Alibaba spinoff plan and instead slim down and spin off Yahoo’s core business.

Now, everyone is waiting for details of that plan, which Ms. Mayer has promised to outline by the time the company reports its fourth-quarter financial results this month.

That is unlikely to soothe the unrest at Yahoo, however, since activist investors like the Starboard Value hedge fund are pushing for new management, a new board and a new strategy, including a possible sale of Yahoo’s operating businesses.  A Cincinnati IT services company provides wireless network design, planning, implementation, IT system management, and networking equipment.

Mr. Bonforte said those outside forces were beyond his control.

“That’s the problem with a turnaround,” he said. “The world gets to decide, ‘Time’s up.’ ”

MARISSA MAYER GIVES BIRTH TO TWIN GIRLS

Original Story: money.cnn.com

On Wednesday, Marissa Mayer announced a new plan for the future of Yahoo. On Thursday, she gave gave birth to identical twin girls.

The Yahoo CEO tweeted that she, the twins and her husband, Zachary Bogue, are "doing great."
On her Tumblr blog, Mayer said the twins were born early Thursday morning. A Phoenix corporate lawyer provides professional legal counsel and extensive experience in many aspects of corporate law.

"Thanks to everyone for all of the support and well wishes throughout my pregnancy," she posted.
She did not yet reveal the twins' names.

Zack and I are excited to announce that our identical twin girls were born early this morning. Our whole family is doing great! @zackbogue
— marissamayer (@marissamayer) December 10, 2015

A Yahoo spokeswoman said in a statement the Mayer-Bogue family is "beyond thrilled."
"We couldn't be happier for them!" she said.

Mayer and Bogue also have a son, Macallister, who is 3 years old. Mayer revealed that she was pregnant with Macallister on the day she accepted the Yahoo (YHOO, Tech30) job in July 2012.

The Yahoo CEO was criticized by maternity leave advocates for returning to work quickly after giving birth to her son. Mayer had a nursery installed close to her desk so she could work and help to take care of her child without going back and forth from her office. A Memphis employment lawyer is reviewing the details of this story.

When Mayer announced in August that she was expecting twins, she said she planned on taking a similar tactic.

"Since my pregnancy has been healthy and uncomplicated and since this is a unique time in Yahoo's transformation, I plan to approach the pregnancy and delivery as I did with my son three years ago, taking limited time away and working throughout," Mayer said in a Tumblr post.

Mayer stuck to that promise, appearing on a conference call with investors and on CNBC Wednesday morning to discuss Yahoo's plans to keep the company's lucrative Alibaba stake and spin off its core Internet business into a new company. An Ann Arbor IT services company provides networking solutions that help your business meet the growing demands of today's global marketplace.

CNBC anchor David Faber offered Mayer well-wishes, which she thanked him for. She said during the interview that she was expecting the twins to arrive "later this month."

"There's always a lot to do on both the homefront and the workfront," Mayer said.

Mayer's twins were born just two weeks after Facebook (FB, Tech30) CEO Mark Zuckerberg's wife Priscilla Chan gave birth to the couple's first child -- a daughter named Maxima.

MARISSA MAYER OF YAHOO ANNOUNCES BIRTH OF TWIN DAUGHTERS

Original Story: nytimes.com

Just hours after Marissa Mayer announced a plan to spin off Yahoo’s core Internet business, the chief executive gave birth to identical twin daughters.

“Zack and I are excited to announce that our identical twin girls were born early this morning,” Ms. Mayer said on Twitter on Thursday, referring to her husband, Zachary Bogue. “Our whole family is doing great!” She didn’t disclose any further details.

Congratulatory tweets poured in from well-wishers, including Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google, where Ms. Mayer used to work; Satya Nadella, the chief executive of Microsoft; Ellen Pao, the former interim chief executive of Reddit; and Frank Quattrone, a prominent investment banker.

Ms. Mayer had revealed her pregnancy in September, at a time when scrutiny of Yahoo was increasing. She came aboard Yahoo in 2012 from Google to turn around the struggling Internet company, but it remains well behind Alphabet’s Google and Facebook in online advertising and other areas. For more information on the power of Organic SEO, click here.

Yahoo has recently been considering what to do with the valuable 15 percent stake it owns in Alibaba, the Chinese e-commerce company. It had earlier proposed a tax-free spinoff of the shares, but the plan ran into a setback this year when the Internal Revenue Service said it would crack down on such transactions. That prompted Starboard Value, a hedge fund, to pressure Ms. Mayer to sell off Yahoo’s core business instead. Yahoo’s board met last week to consider its options.

On Wednesday, the board announced that Yahoo would pursue a spinoff of its core Internet business, leaving the Alibaba stock in the old company. A Boston M&A lawyer represents clients in contract matters and in business transactions. In an interview on Wednesday, Ms. Mayer said she agreed with the new plan because the old plan “was causing a certain amount of market uncertainty.”

Ms. Mayer and Mr. Bogue also have a three-year-old son, Macallister.

Ms. Mayer, who has hired several people to help her care for her children both at home and when she is traveling, has said she plans to take a “limited time away” for maternity leave and will be “working throughout.”

Yahoo, offers up to eight weeks of paid leave for any Yahoo employee who has a new child, including birth, adoption, foster child placement or surrogacy. Birth mothers can get an additional eight weeks of additional paid leave. An Albany employment lawyer is following this story closely.

YAHOO TO SPIN OFF ITS REMAINING ALIBABA STAKE

Original Story: cnbc.com

Yahoo on Tuesday said it would spin off its remaining Alibaba stake in a tax-free deal. The stock jumped more than 7 percent after the announcement.

Yahoo's 384 million shares of Alibaba, valued at $40 billion, will be wrapped into a newly formed independent entity, SpinCo.

The stock of the new company will be distributed pro rata to Yahoo shareholders, resulting in SpinCo becoming a separate publicly traded company, Yahoo said in a statement.

"Post-spin, using the closing price for Alibaba as of Jan. 26, we will have returned nearly $50 billion of value to our shareholders," CEO Marissa Mayer said.

"This level of capital return is historic, especially for a company of our size."

The deal is expected to close sometime in the fourth quarter of this year.

The Internet giant also reported fourth-quarter earnings of 30 cents per share, down from 46 cents a share in the year-earlier period. Revenue decreased to $1.18 billion from $1.20 billion.

Analysts had expected the company to report earnings of 29 cents a share on $1.19 billion in revenue, according to a consensus estimate from Thomson Reuters.

Excluding traffic acquisition cost, display revenue contracted 5.5 percent, year over year, to $464 million. Revenue generated from search rose modestly, year over year, to $462 million.

Much of Yahoo's mobile revenue comes from search ads, an area that is becoming more competitive as companies like Yelp, Amazon and TripAdvisor continue to fragment the market, according to research firm eMarketer.

Looking forward, the company forecast current-quarter revenue of between $1.02 billion and $1.06 billion. That's lower than the $1.10 billion Wall Street currently expects.

Yahoo has discontinued more than 60 products and services over the past two years in an effort to "focus on the offerings that matter most" to its users, the company said in December.

Uncertainty around Yahoo's plans for the stake and how the market could react to the potential news was reflected in the options market.

Options data on Monday showed traders were expecting a 8 percent swing in the stock the after earnings announcement. That's nearly twice as much as shares have moved on average after reporting earnings.