This past summer, Daniel Raffel was desired. Google was pushing hard to hire the product manager, we hear from a source. And there are whispers that Twitter and Facebook were also in pursuit of his services. Basically, it seems like he had his choice of the companies in Silicon Valley that everyone wants to work for. So where did he end up? Yahoo.
Yahoo hasn’t exactly seemed like the ideal place to work over the past couple of years. Besides just the Microsoft acquisition offer distraction (and subsequent search deal), and the CEO shuffle, the company has lost much of its sterling polish that it once had during the dot-com era. But what’s even more odd is that Raffel has worked at Yahoo before. It’s where he made a name for himself by helping to create Yahoo Pipes, the popular content mashup tool. But a few years ago, Raffel took off to work at Pioneers of the Inevitable, where he helped make Songbird, the open source desktop music player.
So why’d he come back to Yahoo at a time when others were pursuing him? It’s hard to say for sure, but one source believes Yahoo paid a significant amount of money to lure him back. Another source believes he was promised more resources and an easier time rising up the ladder than if he went to Google. Still, Yahoo over Google is not a choice that a lot of people seem to make these days. And one source is sure that Bradley Horowitz, a former Yahoo exec that is now at Google, would have obviously wanted to bring Raffel on board, and was likely pushing for it.
There’s another reason he may have went with Yahoo. Since returning in late August, Raffel has been serving as a senior product manager under Cody Simms, the senior director of product management for Yahoo Open Source (Y!OS), we hear. He’s apparently working on mainly off-network projects such as making the Yahoo authentication platform more seamless. That might not sound sexy, but the bigger picture may be involve Yahoo building out its own platform product to better connect Yahoo with the rest of the web. Yes, think Facebook Connect, Google Friend Connect, and the like. The chance to get into this hot space and play a critical role in building a “Yahoo Connect,” may have also enticed Raffel to come back, but that’s pure speculation at this point.
“He’s one of those rare product guys who is technical and can actually build stuff,” says one our sources. We’ll be watching what he’s building for Yahoo the second time around.
We’ve reached out to Raffel for comment, but have yet to hear back. We’ll update if we do.
[photo: flickr/sektordua]
A Yahoo Connect sounds like a good idea.
Yahoo hasn’t exactly seemed like the ideal place to work over the past couple of years. + he CEO shuffle, the company has lost much of its sterling polish that it once had during the dot-com era
Agree to that Mr. Siegler. This post is just a speculation on which is which, but you can’t deny the fact that yahoo is going on Armageddon as we speak.
Don’t believe me? Let’s just say one of the best example why it would happen is because of their CEO Carol “loser” Bartz: http://bit.ly/i...loser-hell-yeah
“There’s another reason he may have went with Yahoo. ”
…he may have gone with Yahoo.
I hate when people use “have went.” It sounds awful.
Daniel rocks, and Yahoo! is lucky to have him back!
+1 . Daniel is a great product guy, and he can make a big difference (if Yahoo! allows him to — a big if…)
Personally I work for Yahoo because of the people here. And if we get people like Daniel back then I am even happier. Pipes was a revolutionary product and YQL is taking its idea even further. If you stop looking at what the brand Yahoo does and take the time to look at the tech company Yahoo and its products then you’ll know why people come back or join up. People who went to the Stack Overflow DevDays and saw me going through the developer offers of Yahoo all left with a “wow” on their lips. The same goes for Google. Large corporations have a media face and a tech face. The tech face is what attracts talent, the media face attracts people who want a big name on their CV.
people join up because you can pull down 100k+ and do almost nothing in exchange. it was a great scam. i know people who quit simply because they got sick of coming in to work and doing nothing more than going to the gym and reading blogs (while pulling down six figures). one dude was actually doing work as a contractor on y! time and on y! equipment. classic!
So this is what it has come to? Write ups for mid-level product managers? There are only about 15k of these in the valley….
I share this same sentiment. It’s also an article full of speculation. Where is the meat in this?
Yahoo! has been very good to me over the years and I’m excited to have the chance to continue to make it a better place. Look forward to talking about what I’m working on at a more appropriate time.
We’re thrilled to have Daniel back at Yahoo! as part of the Y!OS team.
Cheers,
-c
I wonder if TC tried to recruit him lol.
This article is one of the most boring ones I have read on TC (no offense to Dan though I am sure he is a great guy).
i have no idea why people even want to work for big corporations past maybe 24 years old. with the skills most of us have, work for yourself.
Yahoo connect makes great sense, they are a destination portal that is actually successful. I’d say Yahoo and AOL will team up in the next 18 months.
yeah they’ll rebrand the new company Compuserve
Making the Yahoo Authentication platform more seamless sounds sexy to me! Daniel rocks, btw.
haha! y! has been working on a facebook-like platform for what, like THREE YEARS now? cody simms inherited this group after everyone else with a brain quit. this is without a doubt one of the most troubled groups at y! and is a classic example of why y! just can’t things done and is relegated to irrelevance. pipes was basically the brainchild of one guy who now runs polyvore. everyone else just stood around and took credit.
yahoo pinned its hopes on oauth making the yahoo apps platform take off, but who wants to authenticate to an api that doesn’t exist? so you can run yql queries?
i’m amazed that bartz hasn’t asked why the YOS group, which has at least 100+ headcount, hasn’t produced anything of value in THREE+ years, other than a profiles redesign that kicked lots of users out of the network (by deleting their existing profiles).
this whole story is CLASSIC post-semel y!, in the worst way
I have Google,Aol, Live but I love MY YAHOO!
Good job, both DR and YHOO! I’m looking forward to more than, just this eye-catching “I hired on” headline, though.
Why do you do the following foolish things, again and again and again:
Make simple human beings into false celebrities — This “celebrity mania” created by blogs like TechCrunch and main stream media makes people believe that there is more to a Tech Career than doing an honest job — the goal is to become a Tech Celebrity. Be named all over the place, appear on Time Magazine or Crunch Base — to feel worth while and perhaps have sense of achievement.
The bloke is just looking for a job and money to make sure he can pay his bills and put food on the table. If the unseen outcome of his work turns to be useful to Yahoo!, the Tech world, or society — awesome. But whats with this childish Tech-Celeb-Porn-Mania that you jokers keep whipping up. Perhaps to make sure you guys have a job? Create a desire in others to be named and have their 15 minutes of fame?
You guys are total jerks. Really.
Yahoo does a lot of things for the open source community and I am sure they will have soon their comeback. And then it’s maybe one of the best places to work.
Personally, I feel that Y! Pipes was a great product. It has helped me resolve and filter through hundreds of data sources over the past 2 years and provided just the information I need. It is just so great to see him back at Yahoo!
@MG – Y!OS is Yahoo! Open Social not Y! open source.
That still doesn’t mean that Yahoo doesn’t do a lot of open source work. YUI3 is open source, Hadoop is, you can download our geo database…
the way yui is handled just shows how little y understands about open source…its a BSD license but they won’t accept community input…its almost like yahoo wants people to fork it
O RLY?
http://www.yuib...-yui-3-gallery/
Really? The last two major components in YUI were contributed by the lead frontend at Mint.com and by a retiree in Spain. (http://www.yuib...9/14/yui-2-8-0/). Chris noted the YUI 3 Gallery above (http://yuilibrary.com/gallery/). Yahoo! is committed, but the community is one of the best things about YUI.
YOS stands for Yahoo! Open Strategy (not social nor source).
“There’s another reason he may have went with Yahoo.”?
Did Chris Waddle write this?
Hopefully his move to return back again to Yahoo will help to boost the company and bring it back again to competitve level. With that in mind, probably there’s more role to play and tougher challenges ahead that influence his decision.
I worked with him a few years back.
My guess is he makes incredible “BluePrints” that are so detailed it makes architectural blueprints look simple. He also gets involved in the day to day project management to the point that he comments on the coders work each day.
Hi MG,
Your posts seems quite biased with perhaps your own personal prejudice. What makes you think Yahoo! is not one of the great places to work for?
Some of the leading products are still run by Yahoo!, like email, news, sports, finance,.. and so on.
And I personally feel, in the ones Yahoo! isn’t the best, it gives the people inside even a bigger reason to innovate faster than the leader.
Just because you like to tweet, and use google reader and gmail doesn’t mean everything else is crap. Open your eyes please.
Regards,
Anurag.
lol, Yahoo is the worst place to work for, most slugs there are just biting time until they get laid off and receive their severance.