XHaus

Some call it XHaus, or what I personally call "Y!Fail" or internally, "Y!Bang" *smirk*. Yahoo let go of our team, and it's really -really- unfortunate. If anything, it's extremely short-sighted of Yahoo!.

As a "last word" for my fellow colleagues there, I want to thank above all Joy Mountford for starting our team and vision, and Ben Clemens for keeping everything in order and feeding us delicious lunches. They've worked many hard hours and fought to the bitter end for our team.

Every time a colleague asks me "Mike, why the hell are you working at Yahoo!?" I defended them. "Yahoo! is not about search!" I say. "They are a web portal and a nest for innovation, especially in our offices in San Francisco!" For weeks we were certain this would not affect us. I had hope, real hope, that what we believed in, what we defended, were true.

However, when push came to shove, Yahoo! fell flat on its face. This is not a criticism of Yahoo! per-se, but for the silly corporate squabble that puts finances too far above innovation.

To my colleagues in no particular order: Aaron Koblin, Aaron Meyers, Parul, Doug Fritz, Ray Mcclure, Juliana Yamashita, Daniel Massey, Carrie Burgener, Jen Lau, Jenny Chowdhury, Vaibhav Bhawsar, and Mia -- you are all by far the most professional and competent team I have ever worked with and it has been a tremendous honor working with you. My only wish leaving YHaus is to some day cross paths again and pick up where we have left off.