As expected, there will be more blood-letting at AOL, where another 20 percent of employees (out of 10,000 total) will be let go. Kara Swisher got a copy of CEO Randy Falco’s Dear John letter to AOL workers, where he lays out his priorities:
Put simply, my vision for AOL is to build the largest and most sophisticated global advertising network while we grow the size and engagement of our worldwide audience.
What it boils down to is that he is doubling down on turning AOL into an advertising network (via Platform-A), keeping traffic up at its destination sites, and continuing to squeeze all the cash that’s left out of the dial-up business. So not a huge strategy shift, other than the renewed focus on advertising. If Falco can make Platform-A work, it will most likely be spun off in a sale or IPO down the road. Anyone care to guess how many employees AOL will have left when that happens?
AOL should become a Facebook App.
As #1. said… they should move fast in integrating with Facebook via an app.
n00bs!
AOL is still arround?
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
@ Steve - You’re still around
They can;t merge now ….couldn’t handle the one with Time warner…Unfortunately if they are profitable they can;t file for bankrupcy so yeah…they might get a Vonage type IPO
How many AOL employees does it take to screw in a lightbulb?
thank god i didn’t take their job offer.
2,000 of how many?
@New Customers Online did you only read the headline? The article spells it out.
You see 2000 layoffs, I see 2000 startups.
This is very common, when a business refocuses and changes strategy. Quantity doesn’t always means quality. So I am guessing here that the new strategy calls for a much leaner work force. Where profits can be maximized, hopefully they will return aol to its glory days or not..
Good luck to all!
ElyFall, I see you not being in touch with reality.
Instead of hiring just anybody and firing people, you should hire GOOD people and invest in them. That’s what I did. I invested in our employees again today.
http://www.beercosoftware.com/.....omplished/
They should fine tune their interview process. I know at least one AOL employee who is a psychopath and not very qualified. He threatened to kill me at least twice a year or so ago. Then there was the Vincent Ferrari incident.
youtube.com/watch?v=xmpDSBAh6RY
AOL is a bloated corporation that collapsed under it’s own weight. I will make sure that will not happen with us even after our search engine is released. It’s all about people, and making sure that you don’t get people that are lazy or that suck.
employees are a burden if they are not generating cash for your business. directors are a burden if they can not archive the above.
capitalists are a burden if they have no vision
ah all’s lost and the game goes on.
then there were 8,000 .. what do they do exactly? I suppose that includes tech support , accounting , management , custodial, legal etc etc.. But I wonder what percentage of resource allocation gets to to R&D.
Jason. I did not mean this in a sarcastic way. What i was trying to say is that most likely several of those guys will eventually go on to start their own company, which in return can be a great step.
I was in the same situation not too long ago. It was coming so I left before it happened. I can tell you that although I make less money, my future as well as my present are much brighter.
Sorry if i offended you or anyone
“employees are a burden if they are not generating cash for your business. directors are a burden if they can not archive the above.
capitalists are a burden if they have no vision”
AOL’s employees did this:
youtube.com/watch?v=xmpDSBAh6RY
and this:
http://www.techcrunch.com/2006.....arch-data/
They hire the most screwed up people you could ever hire as programmers and tech support, in my opinion. People that are truly out of their mind.
Even if they threaten a few people for a few dollars their insanity has a net effect of driving the company straight into the ground.
They LOVE to play rough with customers, and have shown very little concern for their data.
Then the digg clone with netscape and all the other stuff they did. Reports that the execs at AOL would take helicopter rides for stuff like personal lunchens. And there were reports that they did cocaine openly in the building.
media.guardian.co.uk/city/story/0,,979524,00.html
“Klein quotes one AOL executive describing a group of colleagues openly snorting cocaine from the bonnet of a car before the 2001 Super Bowl.”
If anybody walked through my door and said they had experience at AOL, I would turn them right around and walk them out of the building.
The superbowl report was the first result on Google, but the reports I read in the day were about snorting coke inside the actual building. The manager I personally know there is a complete wacko. (no joke, he’s for real)
anyone care about AOL at all?
umm, no
sojo - nice website. geocities?
“sojo - nice website. geocities?”
Lots of people pay for vehicle lettering. Though I am doubtful about the durability of this product, but I do know there is a market for it. There are shops around here that survive on vehicle graphics and commercial signs alone. Lots of them.
That should read: “Though I am doubtful about the durability of this product, I do know there is a market for it.”
All Out of Luck!
lol
http://fakesteveballmer.blogspot.com
AO Who?
Chris,
Man you are one incredible know-it-all fuckwit aren’t you. At least on a blog where it’s not easy for someone to bust your melon in an unanticipated reflexive motion, you are a very big man aren’t you.
Now, far be it from me to defend the likes of AOL senior management but I do now know and have known some really great programmers from AOL, particularly their mobile group in Seattle. Your descriptions of AOL employees, in my very real experience, are inaccurate and slanderous.
Perhaps you should tone down your rhetoric and tone up your humility. You mind find you don’t have to spend as many nights alone posting to obscure groups because you can communicate with real people face to face.
Biff
ok, so this is the kind of traffic techcrunch is charging customers 10k a month for.. Ridiculous !!!!
…this should be a wake-up call to all the silicon valley drones pulling in 12-14hr days. your company feeds you free food as long as it’s in their best interest to do so. Otherwise, you’re expendable once the business is no longer profitable..
Ouch. I feel bad for those losing their positions.
Let me get this straight… NOW AOL wants to become the next Google of online advertising… maybe if we where 1995 it would have a shot but now, with dwindling demand for dial-up as things progress and coming so late to the game… I figure an IPO is the last thing they should be focusing upon (he doesn’t say it directly but between the lines, that’s the only way out).
Jon