Tellme Founder Tells Yahoo Not to Worry Over Microsoft Takeover

Tellme founder and previous Yahoo co-founder, Mike McCue hasn't spoken to past-partner Jerry Yang since the Microsoft takeover bid for Yahoo, but he wanted to let his friend know that being acquired by Microsoft isn't such a terrible proposition. "After being assured that Tellme would be able to retain its Silicon Valley office, identity and quirky culture, McCue negotiated an $800 million sale to Microsoft and agreed to stay on as general manager. It's a decision that he says he doesn't regret 10 months into the marriage. 'We are pretty much doing everything we were doing before - just a lot more of it,' said McCue, 40. Because of the vast differences in size, the Tellme deal obviously isn't an apples-to-apples comparison to Microsoft's proposed $40 billion acquisition of Yahoo, which contends it's worth even more money despite a two-year earnings slump."

Given Yahoo's assistance in Totalitarian China...

[sethstorm]

...it'd be employees of Microsoft in that part of the world that need fear this takeover. Of course, when you let Wall Street rule the world, human rights gets thrown out of the window and into the next county.

Who wouldnt be?

[miffo.swe]

Getting paid $800 million i would gladly let Bill Gates rape my company anyday. Asking someone recently given that kind of money what they think is pretty useless.

The 'Borg' icon really makes sense

[giminy]

This is the first time in a long time that the borg icon for MS makes entirely too much sense...you will be assimilated, etc.

Biased

[Comatose51]

I'm not saying that the guy is biased but let's just think about this for a second. Anyone who've agreed to be bought by Microsoft has already found Microsoft to be a good match. In other words, if Microsoft wasn't a good match, the deal would have never gone through and we wouldn't have this article. It's kind of like asking a bunch of BMW owners what they think of BMWs. Most of them would have positive things to say, especially the new owners (which is similar in this case). To get an accurate picture we need to ask those who turned down Microsoft why did they turn them down as well as those who accepted the offer.

To be fair, many of my coworkers are former Microsoft employees and most of them did have positive things to say about the work environment. Obviously, it wasn't the end all and be all of places since they did leave after all.

Maybe, Maybe Not

[OakLEE]

While I think a good segment of Yahoo's workforce won't have to worry so much, an acquisition like this is not going to happen without dead weight being trimmed off.

Assuming the merger occurs Microsoft, regardless of its promises, will have to start integrating Yahoo into MSN or vice versa. It would make no sense to run two competing operations under one roof. Thus we can safely assume that either MSN or Yahoo's upper management are toast, unless Microsoft is completely idiotic and wants to integrate the two, which would create all sorts of loyalty and corporate culture conflicts.

After management, who gets fired next depends on what Microsoft is buying Yahoo for.

If you believe what Microsoft says, it is buying Yahoo for engineering talent, then most of the Yahoo's content departments become redundant and will be eliminated, while the engineers and IT people stay.

If you believe that Microsoft is buying Yahoo because MSN's content is shit poor, then the content people are safe. The engineers and IT people become redundant as Yahoo moves over to a Microsoft-based back end. (For those who think that's impossible, remember that Microsoft moved Hotmail from BSD to Windows 2k with relative efficiency.)

If you believe (as I do) that Microsoft is buying Yahoo for its account/user base, then every employee at Yahoo is conceivably expendable since the value in Yahoo would lie in one of its raw assets (users) and not in the organizational structure of the company itself. Buying solely for the user accounts, would obviate the need for Yahoo as an entity.

Regardless of how you view it though, Yahoo as a completely separate and intact operation under the Microsoft umbrella is impossible just because it competes on a lot of fronts with MSN, and unless Microsoft's plan involves completely dismantling its MSN unit, some consolidation of the two is going to have to occur.

Re:Maybe, Maybe Not

[norbac]

Assuming the merger occurs Microsoft, regardless of its promises, will have to start integrating Yahoo into MSN or vice versa. It would make no sense to run two competing operations under one roof.

Not really. In the end all they want is online advertising. It may make sense to adopt a single advertising platform, but keep both properties (MSN, Yahoo) separate to appeal to the broadest possible audience.

800 million....

[seifried]

For 800 million dollars I'd be willing to tell people pretty much anything about how great MSFT is.

Re:Biased

[blind monkey 3]

Isn't the he an employee of Microsoft?
Surely he would be a brave person to bite the hand that feeds him... especially such a big hand, attached to a long arm at that.

I wouldn't be so cavalier about it

[melted]

You know, there are hundreds of hungry VPs in Redmond and they have buddies who they might not mind seeing in Tellme's general manager seat. They're a lot better connected than he is.

Re:Who wouldnt be?

[Znork]

Asking someone recently given that kind of money

It's not the money. While I'm sure the recipient of that kind of money would be hesitant to comment negatively, the keyword here is recently.

Ten months into an acquisition and a company of Microsofts size has barely noticed it's got a new appendage. They probably haven't even finished connecting internal networks or handed out ID's, never mind hooking up finance and reporting systems.

See if 'anything's changed' in five years, once functional units have been merged into the mainstay and the real estate unit wonders why they have this expensive office in silicon valley, the culture unit has been briefed in the new culture is busy holding chairthrowing contests, and 'identity' is something you put in the corporate directory and 'identity management' deals with.

Re:Biased

[dirk]

While it's true that he may be biased, asking people who have turned down MS won't tell you anything, because they have no knowledge of what happens when MS buys you. What this guy is trying to get across (for either his own personal reasons or as an MS employee)is that a lot of the fears and FUD you hear about MS taking over a company (they will just fire everyone and keep the tech, they will totally assimilate you and change your culture, they will just buy you and bury your tech and push theirs, etc)are not true. Asking someone who didn't get taken over by MS what MS does when they take someone over is just silly, as they don't know. If you want to know if something is true, you ask people who have been through it, not someone who avoided it because of the rumours.

Difference between Yahoo and MS

[Ilgaz]

(Thanks to a hotmail victim friend)

Safari 3 on OS X Leopard:

Hotmail: "This is hotmail light version, to get all hotmail features upgrade to Internet Explorer 6"
Yahoo: "Yahoo mail beta works with Safari 3 now!"

That is the difference between MS and Yahoo.