Yahoo Recent Layoffs: Looks Like Top Flickr Talent Is Gone

Om Malik reported Wednesday on more layoffs at Flickr. Most notably Flickr Chief Architect Cal Henderson seems to have left the company and is rumored by All Things Digital to be working on a stealth gaming start up with Former Flickr Chief and Flickr Co-Founder Stewart Butterfield (who had probably the best resignation letter of all time when he resigned himself last year).

Former Flickr Chief Architect Cal Henderson

Engineer Rev Dan Catt, probably my favorite character on Flickr, is also leaving and says on his blog that he’ll be moving back to the UK near Manchester. In his blog post he hinted that he’d like to work for Google (GOOG). Among other things, Rev Dan did a lot of work on the geo-tagging of images. I think that’s one of the more exciting areas on Flickr and am disappointed to see that he won’t be working on that directly anymore. I’ve got thousands of my own photos geo-tagged on Flickr at present.

Silicon Alley Insider reported that Yahoo laid off 600 in total Wednesday. Yahoo had announced on their most recent earnings conference call that they were going to lay off about 700 employees. In December during a previous round of layoffs, Yahoo laid off three other Flickr team members including Flickr Designer George Oates.

Last month San Francisco magazine reported that Flickr had recently become profitable for Yahoo.

Comments

[Foghladha:]

I think yahoo is trying really hard to write the book on how not to do business. All of the business students should see what yahoo is doing and do the opposite in their careers. Random shotgun layoffs replace the masterminds behind profitable applications and leave the guys spending more time on facebook than programming. Not only that but they issue statements like 10% of the yahoo force will be cut in 3 weeks. They don't mention names. Its like a bloody lottery. What do you think that does to productivity? I for one would be spending more time on my Linkedin and resume than writing code. Not only that but the toll it takes on the "Family-like" atmosphere and moral of the company.

I mean honestly, first they axe the creators of Right Media who they just paid an ungodly amount of money for. Which left them with a product that nobody knows how it works. When yahoo purchased Right Media they were a very profitable business. Now flickr is suffering the same wraith. I hope all those at zimbra are ready for round 3. If their looking to kill their profit streams I'm guessing zimbra is next.

Until yahoo realizes that their cutting the profit out of their company they will continue to fall. I'm so sad to see them go down like this. I've never seen a company try to kill themselves so much.

Apr 30 03:34 PM

[Thomas Hawk:]

Update:
Update: Earlier this morning I listed Kevin Collins as one of the Flickr employees whose name no longer appeared on the about Flickr page in error. I’ve corrected this and removed his name as one of those absent. It was also brought to my attention that two additional names who are no longer on the about Flickr page are those of Eric Costello and Serguei Mourachov, both long-time Flickr team members. In September of last year both Costello and Mourachov were listed on the about Flickr page, today they are not. I suspect that both may have left Flickr prior to this most recent round of layoffs. Or they could both still be at Flickr but for some unknown reason removed from the about Flickr page.

Apr 30 05:40 PM