While they wait for more details from Jerry, former and current Yahoos can only speculate as to what the upcoming layoffs will look like. One former Yahoo shared a plausible theory regarding the New York offices Yahoo added when it acquired Right Media in 2007:
NY is going to get hit pretty hard with the layoffs and then they are going to close the old Right Media office since that is very expensive real estate and the office is basically empty. Something like 75% of the people who worked for right media pre-acquisition have left the company (at least on the tech side. I don't know anyone on business).
This is obviously just speculation at this point. But it's plausible:
- If our source is correct about all the departures, there's no point in paying rent on an office that's half empty.
- Including the Right Media location on 2 Park Avenue, Yahoo currently has 3 offices in New York -- (the others are a HotJobs office on 18th Street) and a sales office in midtown. That's about two offices too many.
- Former Right Media CEO Mike Walrath has already vacated his space in the old office, after moving to the Bay Area this fall.
- The old Right Media office is ugly.
See Also:
Jerry's Promise To Yahoos: I'll Fire You Before The Holidays
Jerry Yang's Layoff Memo
Yahoos Sweat: Will We Get That Same Fat Microsoft Severance?
