This reporting appears as one of several scoops featured in this week’s edition of Confider, the media newsletter that pulls back the curtain to reveal what’s really going on inside the world’s most powerful navel-gazing industry. Subscribe here and send your questions, tips, and complaints here.
Once an icon of the early internet, Yahoo is now an abandoned dumpster fire—to put it lightly—multiple insiders conveyed to Confider.
Apollo Global Management, which purchased the company last year from Verizon and installed former Tinder CEO Jim Lanzone at the top, has been quietly dismantling Yahoo over the past few months, sources said, occasionally eliminating departments wholesale without communicating a reason.
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Since the fall, people with knowledge of the matter confirmed, Yahoo has canned its commerce and SEO leads without replacing them, and there have been rolling layoffs every month, with as many as 30 staffers losing their jobs in February. Managers have not been empowered to backfill or hire for open positions, insiders claimed, and so remaining employees are left to do the extra work without extra pay.
And despite considering Yahoo Finance and Yahoo Sports its most valuable assets, the company recently parted ways with Yahoo Sports GM Geoff Reiss and axed five positions at Yahoo Finance earlier this year—further sending mixed messages to employees.
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“It’s shocking,” a current Yahoo employee told Confider. “I don’t know what the ultimate goal is, because they are bleeding these businesses to death. They are cutting costs but not strengthening the business.” This person added: “Morale is at an all-time low.”
Yahoo has also significantly downsized its office space, cutting its NYC office from four floors down to one, selling its Dulles hub, and eliminating many smaller outposts like Detroit—all while retaining a San Jose campus that sources described as costly.
“This story contains many factual inaccuracies and greatly mischaracterizes the overall direction we are taking with Yahoo,” a spokesperson wrote to Confider. “While we are in the early stages of our plans, we have substantial growth opportunities across our key verticals and we will continue to invest deeply. Regarding real estate, like most companies in our industry we have been re-evaluating our investment in all locations in response to our newly hybrid work schedule, both domestically and internationally.”
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