Bill Gates Wants Yahoo’s People. The Feeling isn’t Mutual.
This is the funniest thing I’ve heard all week.
Bill Gates is willing to pay a lot for engineering talent.
Asked what makes Yahoo worth more than $40 billion, Gates pointed not to the company’s products, its huge base of advertisers, or its market share, but rather to Yahoo’s engineers. Those people, he said, are what Microsoft needs to go after Google.
In an interview after his speech at Stanford University, Gates said that it turns out it takes a lot of manpower to build tools for advertisers, mobile, and video products as well as improving its core search algorithm and building an infrastructure for cloud computing. “The amount of computer science it is taking to do that is phenomenal,” he said. “As you get more scale of engineering you can just pursue that agenda more rapidly. Yes, the advertisers and the number of end users is good, but we’d put the people and the engineering as the key thing.”
Bill, what the Hell are you talking about? Yahoo employees hate your guts! No matter how great their engineers are, they just won’t work for you!
“Yahoo has always considered itself a bit of an upstart,” says a former Yahoo employee who asked to remain anonymous. “Most Yahoo employees will feel that, A., we lost, and B., there is no way in hell that I am going to work for Microsoft.”
Even if Microsoft buys Yahoo, Yahoo’s best engineers could follow the well-respected Brad Horowitz to Google. In a cruel twist of fate, Google could end up getting the very engineers Bill wanted out of the purchase. Ballmer could end up needing a lot more chairs.
After watching this clip from Pirates of Silicon Valley, it occurs to me that Bill is probably lying about his motivations. He really wants Yahoo for its advertisers and users. All his talk about valuing Yahoo’s engineers is just a ploy to lower resistance to a merger.
Either way, it won’t work. Genuine or fake, Bill’s lust for Yahoo’s people is not mutual.
Tags: Bill-Gates, funny, microsoft, stupid, Tech, Yahoo
February 21, 2008 | Filed Under Tech | 2 CommentsObama’s IT-Enabled Ethics
From Google for Government to bills online, the Internet plays a huge role in Barack Obama’s push for government ethics. In fact, he plans to appoint America’s first CTO.
Obama’s IT-enabled ethical thrust would would work in the Philippines, too. As demonstrated by the cast of characters embroiled in the NBN scandal, IT decision-making in the Philippine government is a total mess. This country needs a CTO to make those decisions. Now if only the Philippine government would use the Internet as a weapon against corruption instead of an excuse for corruption.
Creative Commons Founder Considers Congress
Lawrence Lessig, the founder of Creative Commons, is considering a run for Congress in California.
If Lessig runs, I’ll support his campaign. Creative Commons licenses allow independent creators to be heard in an oppressive copyright regime dominated by corporate interests. Perhaps Lessig will allow Californians to be heard in an oppressive legislative regime dominated by corporate interests.
Meanwhile, in the Philippines, some senator’s trying to protect DRM. Maybe we should elect Teddy Kalaw to Congress. He studied under Lessig.
Tags: America, California, Creative Commons, Lessig, Politics
February 20, 2008 | Filed Under Politics | Post a Comment-
About the Author
Mike Abundo serves as Vice-President for Online Services of the Philippine Internet Commerce Society. He also writes for Inside Online Video and Tech Side Up. Email him at mike@mikeabundo.com.
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