Yahoo Leaks Continue; Why Doesn’t this Happen to Google?

Thursday, February 15th, 2007;
-- Andy Beal |

OK, so TechCrunch has acquired a copy of an email sent out to all Yahoo employees, by CFO Susan Decker. It’s a long-winded memo highlighting restructuring and promotions (congrats to Tim Cadogan).

I’m not going to re-hash the entire email, but I do want to ask this (not so) rhetorical question:

“What does the leaking of internal emails say about the morale and unity at Yahoo?”

It’s interesting that while getting this kind of stuff from Google is like getting blood out of a stone - Google employees are very loyal to the vision - Yahoo employees are leaking this stuff out to the public.

If Yahoo is going to make a legitimate attempt to gain ground on Google, it needs to look within the core. It’s going be tough to fight the battle, if you don’t have the loyalty and support of the troops.

Now, to be fair, maybe I’m way off base here, but it certainly feels like there’s a lot of angst among Yahoos.

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10 Responses to “Yahoo Leaks Continue; Why Doesn’t this Happen to Google?”

  1. Jason Schramm Says:

    Maybe Google doesn’t send out damaging corporate-wide memos? Or their stock is doing well enough for them to keep the news to themselves. It’s all about the corporate culture; another reason that you don’t find many leaks from Apple.

  2. Andy Beal Says:

    Agreed Jason. That’s what I’m getting at - it just feels like Yahoo needs to fix the culture first.

  3. Why does Yahoo leak? « Scobleizer - Tech Geek Blogger Says:

    [...] Why does Yahoo leak? Andy Beal asks why Yahoo leaks when Google doesn’t. [...]

  4. pn Says:

    any email that is sent companywide is intended for “leaking.” anyone thinking otherwise is living in the darkages.

  5. Frank Says:

    Actually, after reading the steve jobs biography ‘icon’ over xmas - Apple had quite a few issues with press leaks etc. especially when decisions coming from the top disgruntled employees. Jobs had a corporate culture where everyone bent to his will, which meant he invariably pissed some people off. When Jobs made his big return to Apple it was one of the things he had to really invest time into controlling. From memory he basically banned all employees from talking to any reporters period, with harsh repercussions if they were caught. I got the impression he bullied people, would it be the same at Google or are they more loyal?

  6. Andy Beal Says:

    Well bullying is certainly one approach.

  7. Aaron Shear Says:

    Many companies are now enforcing a no forward rule within their corp email announcements. It make employees think twice about copying the contents and sending it out.

  8. kelvin newman Says:

    Yeah if they don’t fear the repecussions it’s always going to be a problem

  9. Carl Lrac Says:

    I agree with Scobleizer. I think the corporations do this so that it looks like a leak, but indeed is not.

  10. Özel Ders Says:

    I believe the biggest reason is that google employees are a lot more loyal to their companies..

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