This article is as much a statement about Yahoo as much as it is about remote vs. on-site work. Personally, I question Yahoo's long-term relevance anyway. As each year goes by, it seems they lag further and further behind, and are not part of the real momentum anymore. I'm curious if others agree. The most news I have heard about Yahoo in the last year or so was really all about the celebrity status of Mayer, being pregnant on the job, etc. Does anyone here foresee something relevant coming from that shop?
I remember working at Yahoo in the late 90's as a barista and watching all the people walking around with HTML for Dummies books under their arms while enjoying their free espresso and chai thinking nah, these guys won't make it.
I remember my friends working at Yahoo in the 2000's being all excited about the cult worship, good perks, then getting cynical about being stifled because they copied everything AOL was doing with project matrix management thinking nah, these guys won't make it.
I remember being at Google watching Marissa Mayer's user profile being delete right after the announcement got out that morning thinking nah, these guys won't make it.
But then I keep remembering, my mom still reads Yahoo Taiwan, uses Yahoo Mail, and sends me Yahoo News links. Then I keep remembering about the hundreds of products with plenty of inertia keeping the overall organization going.
Yahoo's in a great position. They still have good talent, have good traffic, and most importantly they can position themselves to be Apple's best friend by simply being Google's enemy.
Flickr, IntoNow, legacy stuff like Mail, Sports, Trave are still pretty diamonds that needs polish and TLC. They just gotta shore up profit to stay alive while out Google Google.
I can't help but think flickr (pro member here) missed the "social boat". Yahoo acquired them for $35 million. Instagram was $1 billion. If they had jumped onto sharing photos on twitter/facebook at the right time, facebook might not have ever even IPOed.
Instagram $1BB is an once in a lifetime situation brought on by the urgency of a company looking to block out competition and having the money.
Flickr isn't the same product as Instagram.
The real question is should Flickr change into an Instagram-like product or should Flickr stay as a photography community/product and can that still be profitable.
I don't know, but SmugMug, Behance, 500px etc are doing well. But the photo pie is getting bigger while Flickr's slice isn't necessarily growing at the same pace. This is a tough decision for executive management to double down, hold, or fold.
Now that the internet is mainstreamed why is this a bad thing? No, really, think it through. Why would having a good hold on the demographics that would actually pay attention to ads be a bad thing?
Yahoo's corporate DNA being a media company should make help, not detract, when new media is just media.
(edited to fix typo)