Internal Memo Leaks: Then Vs. Now

You may have heard that a fairly well known executive at Yahoo, Brad Garlinghouse, is leaving the company. Why is he well known? Basically 'cause a couple years ago he wrote a scathing internal memo slamming the company. If it weren't for that, it's not clear how much would really be known about him.

Here's the thing, the famous memo was first reported on November 18th, 2006 in the WSJ. Here's what the article had to say about it:

Last month Brad Garlinghouse, a Yahoo senior vice president, wrote the memo, titled "The Peanut Butter Manifesto," for top executives. His contention: "Change is needed and it is needed soon."

So the memo came out in October 2006, at least 19 days before it was leaked.

 

Fast forward to today: Could you imagine any such memo floating around internally 19 days before it's leaked? No way. Most of the time, the internal memo comes out after a story has leaked (especially at Yahoo). Now it seems, in any given company, there's a claque of employees that auto-forward internal memos to the blogger of their choice the second one hits their inbox.

Anyway, just a little something I noticed when going back through the news.