Dude, you’re back at Yahoo! (Or, Dude, you’re back at Yahoo? WTF?)

Yeah, I came back to Yahoo, and I’m proud of it. I’ve actually been meaning to write this post for a while but finally felt compelled to do so after seeing what’s going on in the company today, and reading some disparaging remarks about the company (again) in the blogosphere.

Here’s my story. It starts way back in 1998 so bear with me. I was a newspaper reporter struggling to make ends meet on an annual salary of less than $20,000. In the Bay Area it’s almost not doable. I eventually started covering some high tech stories in Silicon Valley and was exposed to a number of technologies and people doing interesting things. (This after attending Cal Poly and somehow missing the whole computer science thing.) Anyway, I somehow lucked into a part-time copywriting gig with Yahoo that paid more on the contract than I was paid in three months of work at the newspaper. It planted the seed, even though copywriting wasn’t really for me: There’s opportunity in web content.

A year later, I took a job as editor of a startup regional newspaper which turned into a magazine covering the dot com boom. It folded but not until we covered some cool stories and I, again, was exposed to some incredible people and companies. It was easy back then to see $$ in content. I will never forget going door to door in South Park, dropping off our magazines and seeing creative people doing cool stuff online. So, I taught myself HTML before the magazine folded.

By late 1999 I was working at TechTV, and was finally really doing web content as a reporter, editor and producer and making well over double my newspaper salary. I was stoked. It was a great place to work. But I was a south bay guy, and had always kept my sights on Yahoo. Why? It was the first company doing web content at scale, and doing it at scale in ways that nobody else was doing. I interviewed with Yahoo at one point around 2001 and barely lost out on the job to someone I’m still friends with today. (Yahoo is that kind of place.) I was bummed but it was fine – I figured I still needed to grow. Funny enough, I also interviewed at Google around that time, just as they were beginning to monetize search. I thought the place was weird. Not sure what that says about my judgment, but there you go. If it had been a good fit I might be retired by now. C’est la vie.

In 2004 TechTV was bought by Comcast, and I was given the option to move to LA to join the new G4TV network. I declined and took a severance. Prior to walking I helped lead a content deal with Yahoo, in which TechTV video was distributed out to Yahoo News for a new technology section they were building. Through my contacts at Y News I inquired about a job, and there happened to be one opening. I applied, and was lucky to nail it. That was in 2004.

I worked first as a producer and soon as a product manager for News until late 2008, starting out on the team when it was tiny and working through its massive growth, the media group’s move to Santa Monica, the push into original content, and the rise and fall of our CEO Terry Semel (and many other managers). I left the company at the peak of its uncertainty in Nov. ’08 for a good opportunity, to run the content operation at a startup. Ultimately, that didn’t work out for a number of reasons. It is what it is, and it was a great experience.

I interviewed at a handful of companies early this year. When I asked myself what I really was looking for, the following emerged: 1. I wanted to be working with really smart, great people, both on the engineering side and the content and product side. 2. I wanted to be involved in building web content experiences and products at a really big scale, 3. I wanted some job security and benefits (hey, it’s the economy, stupid) and 4. I really still liked Yahoo. I had been hearing good things about management and the changes that happened while I was gone from friends still at the company, so I figured it’d be worth another shot. In March, I was hired, and I’m now leading product management for a team that builds cool custom content and advertising experiences. Our group is responsible for delivering on a lot of revenue, and our sites serve millions of users. I’m lucky that I can check all the boxes that I wrote for myself during my job hunt. Hell, I’m lucky I got a job this year.

I’m not one of these I-bleed-purple Yahoo people. I’m cognizant of the fact they could lay me off tomorrow without cause. I don’t sell my soul to companies. In fact for a while I really didn’t think I’d end up working at Yahoo again. But as a Yahoo user since around 1995, I definitely have an affinity for the company and its products. With News, I worked with great people and learned more on the job than I ever had before. I wanted that again, so I found a great opportunity and went back.

The company has its faults and challenges and hasn’t always made the best decisions. Hindsight is 20/20. But the company isn’t dead. Far from it. I’m not sure why anyone implies it or ever writes Yahoo’s obituary. It’s got the talent, it’s a huge brand, has a gigantic user base and world-class advertisers. What is Yahoo? I see it as a media services company – we provide services and content, and we sell ads. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.

Every time I see a freakin’ Twitter fail whale, I’m reminded of one way Yahoo is amazing: our sites don’t go down. This is actually an internal mandate, and frankly is something that can add to the infamous bureaucracy we all read about. But, our sites don’t go down. There aren’t many web companies that can achieve this, especially given the traffic Yahoo sees. There are smart people at Yahoo who have figured out how to make this happen and are preparing for problems of bigger scale. This is just one example of things I’ve seen within the company that prove there are countless good, well-reasoned decisions that are made at Yahoo every day.

Here’s another. On Dec. 26, 2004 a huge earthquake hit Indonesia and the ensuing tsunami devastated the region. There were only a couple of us working during the holiday, and nobody knew the magnitude of the event until the next day. We went into scramble mode, and held an emergency version of the editorial meeting generally attended by editorial folks from across the company. With the holidays there was only a handful of people there. As we discussed our coverage options and pages we could launch, I looked to my left and realized that David Filo was sitting next to me offering ideas, the availability of engineering help and hardware support. The same thing happened after Hurricane Katrina. Yahoo mobilized, the founders got involved (I parked next to Filo yesterday – the guy still goes to work), we provided great coverage, Yahoo sourced millions of dollars in aid, and the company helped people on the ground in New Orleans. There are worse companies in the world…

So when was the last time you saw a 404 on a Yahoo web page? Google does search really well but does it have the best News, Sports, Finance and Entertainment websites online? I believe in the powerful combination of human editorial and great technology, and nobody has both like Yahoo. I’ve been involved in quite a bit of strategic planning recently and have been exposed to new leadership that continues to bring fresh ideas and good opportunities to the company. The future remains to be seen but it’s definitely bright, and I’m again stoked to be working at Yahoo.