Smart Folks Leaving Yahoo

Yahoo is all over the news, outsourcing with Google to bring in revenue.  But as Michael Malone writes for ABCNews, the smart folks are leaving Yahoo.  Didn’t KC Mares, Yahoo’s data center strategist leave in April 2008?  Could he see the writing on the wall.

Jeff Weiner, the guy who runs Yahoo.com and Yahoo Messenger and Yahoo Mail, is splitting from the company to go work for a couple of venture capital firms. He joins a growing list of Yahoo's best and brightest who have already bailed out of the company.

If there is any Intellectual Capital equivalent to Moore's Law it is that, no matter what their public explanations, when the smartest folks leave a company that company will soon be in serious trouble, and wherever those folks end up, that company will soon be a whole lot more successful.

Right now, Yahoo is bleeding talent from every doorway. And that means that even if Yang and what remains of his staff can manage to right their listing company, Yahoo will still be dead in the water, lacking in the kind of talent it will need to get moving again and keep up with the competition.

If you are looking for data center staff, maybe you should send someone to hang out in the Yahoo data center parking lots.

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WSJ article "The War for the Web", mentions data center 7 times

WSJ has an independent opinion article written by Andy Kessler, The War For the Web, discussing the battle for the future of computing between Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Amazon, and smaller players IBM, Sun. What caught my attention is in Andy's article he mentions data centers 7 times.

Today, there are several major clouds: Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Amazon and smaller players IBM and Sun. Can there be more? Sure, but it would require a business model that could not only pay for it, but could rip it out every few years and modernize it. Google's $20 billion Web advertising business gives it the cash flow to do so. Advantage Google.

- Speed. Once you build the cloud, it's all about network operations. Whoever can deliver search results faster, wins. Users only realize this subconsciously, but it's true: Google's dominant share is as much about speed as it is for relevant results. Compare it to Microsoft or Yahoo and you'll see. Google built data centers next to waterfalls so electricity could be cheap enough to help it win the speed war.

The continuing battle between Microsoft and Google will mean fierce competition – adding features, building data centers, cutting deals and spending money on speed and customer convenience. That's the way to move technology forward. It's great to see Microsoft with some fight left in it. Not only hasn't the Internet yet matured, it's becoming an ever-more high stakes game.

This article helps to highlight a Green Data Center is part of a corporate strategy for Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Amazon to win the war, they need to be efficient with their resources. The most precious resource is power. Network is second, and water is going to quickly rise as another critical resource.

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Industry Leader Roll Call* at The Green Grid Technical Forum - Microsoft...Here; Yahoo...Here;Google... Google... Is Google Here?

The Green Grid Forum held a Technical Forum in SF Feb 5 - 6, 2008.

An unprecedented opportunity to "Get Connected to Efficient IT", The Green Grid Technical Forum is a unique industry event designed to bring members and other industry stakeholders together to further The Green Grid’s mission of advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems.  Attendees will learn about The Green Grid’s Data Center Metrics, current and emerging techniques for managing data centers for efficiency and future technical deliverables from the organization.  The Green Grid will also host discussions with leading industry policy-makers from around the world.

Part of going Green in a Data Center is to figure out what works, and this event was a great opportunity for industry leaders to exchange ideas. There were over 300 attendees registered for the event, including the biggest of data center operators; Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google. Well, not Google as they didn't show up. Which is confusing given Google's claims of being an environmental leader. Google's Green Energy Czar says

we launched the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, which aims to set efficiency standards for power supplies and dc-to-dc converters, both for servers and also for desktops. It’s about taking what we’ve done on the server side and getting some of the same efficiency improvements on the desktop side where there’s a huge opportunity in terms of total savings.

Google's motto is "do no evil." Given Google operates more servers than anyone else should "do no evil" include participating in The Green Grid Technical Forum? Google has taken on the environmental task by starting projects like Renewable Energy Initiatives, but wouldn't it be better if Google helped validate data center best practices?

Why didn't Google join The Green Grid?

As a side, someone saw Microsoft's Christian Belady, talking to Yahoo's Christina Page.That would have been a fun conversation to list to.

* I was just joking about the roll call analogy.

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Yahoo Green Data Centers in Central Washington

Surfing Yahoo's corporate blog, I found their blog entries on their data centers they opened in Central Washington in 2006 and 2007.

Their latest in Quincy.

Our second data center in Central Washington is open for business! Earlier this month we hosted more than 250 local community members and officials, contractors, and construction crew in Quincy, Washington to celebrate the opening of our first data center built from the ground up. We take great care to find the right combination of fiber connectivity, network availability, low cost of power, land and operations, and a skilled workforce to operate a state-of-the-art facility when looking for new data center locations. In Quincy and nearby Wenatchee (where we opened a data center last November), we not only found all the right resources, we were also embraced by a welcoming community.

Quincy Data Center

And, their first in Wenatchee.

Our facility makes use of “green” initiatives to help us efficiently use resources. We are using hydroelectric power, which is plentiful in this area, and our building uses the cold external air to cool the inside of the data center, a special design element that helps reduce electricity needs and control cooling costs.

In addition Yahoo!'s Director of Climate and Energy strategy has a podcast.

-This Podcast features an interview with Christina Page, Yahoo!’s (YHOO) Director of Climate and Energy Strategy discussing their mandate and progress on becoming "carbon neutral”.
Christina speaks passionately about their projects in India and Brazil equivalent to taking 35,000 cars off the road or turning off the lights on the Vegas strip for two months.

Source: http://cleanenergynews.blogspot.com/2007/10/recent-podcast-with-christina-page.html

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