Yahoo’s CEO To Staff: ‘We Can Do This, We’ll Do This!’

Posted on Apr 6 2012 - 8:07am by Editorial Staff

With earlier this week Yahoo down lined its work force by firing around some 2,000 employees in its massive round of layoffs, the company CEO Scott Thompson emailed his staff Thursday to reassure employees about the company’s strategy. The new Yahoo could be a much small entity with a focus on media and advertising, with the layoff targeted at the product, research and marketing groups. Yahoo’s CEO Scott Thompson has convened top management to outline the restructuring plans and will officially announce a rumoured restructuring soon.

Here’s a copy of the memo reviewed by WSJ:

Yahoos –

This was a tough week. Thank you all for supporting each other through a difficult time.

As hard as big changes like this can be, I was encouraged to hear support from so many of you who really understand our need to operate differently.  That said, I also know many of you still have a lot of questions about where we’re headed and how fast we can get there. I shared a few thoughts in my note earlier this week and you’ll hear more at our All Hands next week.

We deliberately separated this week’s employee action from next week’s discussion of our strategy. The reason was simple:  we felt it was only fair and respectful to those who are leaving and transitioning to take care of each of them before turning to our future.

Starting next week we will begin looking forward and our All Hands is just the beginning.  You’ll be hearing a lot more from me and other leaders about our comprehensive plans for Yahoo!’s future. The immediate next step for all of us is to get clear on our goals, and then take action and move.

There’s a lot to do and that’s why I can’t stress enough that we all need to focus on getting stuff done. Getting stuff done is short hand for eliminating bureaucracy and barriers so we can all innovate as fast as our customers and the industry require. That’s pretty fast.

Our users want fun, informative, engaging experiences on all screens that they feel were designed just for them.  Advertisers want it to be much easier to work with us and they want measurable ROI on their spending.  We can do all that.  But we won’t win by talking about the opportunity.  We’ll win by putting our customers first, creating high-quality experiences, and iterating on them quickly. Great user and advertiser experiences are what will ignite excitement around our brand and get us growing again.

You’ll receive the official invite to our All Hands shortly and we want to know what’s on your mind in advance.  If you have questions before we meet next week, please check Backyard for information and answers to your questions. If you don’t see the answers, please post questions on Backyard, or you can email questions directly to the leadership team.

We can do this. We will do this!  One thing I’ve heard repeatedly since I got here is that everyone wants to win again. There is so much passion for Yahoo! – for what it was and for what we all believe it can be. Even after all you’ve been through, there’s a hard core crew of Yahoos who believe in this company and in its ability to thrive. I have seen big turnarounds before, and this company has the foundation, the spirit, the backbone, and the creativity to get it done.

Personally, I can’t wait to get moving.

Scott

(Image Source: Yahoo logo, Featured Image)

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