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Yahoo layoffs: 'The ultimate poison pill'?

Like RSS pioneer Dave Winer, I wonder what Microsoft thinks of Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang's choice of layoffs? He sure picked some high-profile, strategic folks who Microsoft would, no doubt, love to have added to its ranks as part of its planned Yahoo acquisition.
Written by Mary Jo Foley, Senior Contributing Editor

RSS pioneer Dave Winer wonders aloud about Yahoo's 1,000-person layoff this week, which has resulted in a number of key managers and technologists being axed from the company.

Winer blogged:

Why would Yahoo want to self-inflict more doubt about its future at this moment where doubt is its worst problem? .... When tech companies are acquired the people are the primary asset.

"You gotta wonder what Microsoft thinks about this. Maybe it's the ultimate poison pill. Let's get rid of the talent that Microsoft wants to acquire. Of course that's a poison pill that would surely kill the patient."

Dare Obasanjo, program manager with the Windows Live Platform group, itemizes some of the big-name Yahoo layoff casualties. Among those cut, Obasanjo blogged: Bradley Horowitz, who headed Yahoo's advanced technology division ; Salim Ismail, the director of Yahoo's incubation wing; and Randy Farmer, one of the main architect's of Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang's "comeback plan."

I wonder if News Corp., the latest rumored white knight trying to save Yahoo from Microsoft's clutches, is unhappy about who made it onto Yang's layoff list....

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