Verizon finalizes Yahoo acquisition, instantly starts laying people off
In a vote today, Yahoo's stockholders formally approved the sale of sad former internet company Yahoo to telecoms giant Verizon. The sale values Yahoo at about $4.5 billion, a price that was reduced by hundreds of millions in February, after details of a major Yahoo security breach leaked.
As the vote took place today, details also leaked out about staff reductions that Verizon is imposing on its new acquisition. Around 2,100 positions are reportedly being cut across Yahoo and AOL, the current Verizon subsidiary that Yahoo is being merged with.
Verizon's post-acquisition plan for Yahoo is to merge it with AOL, which these days is mostly a media company. The combined monstrosity will be called "Oath," presumably because Verizon has realized that neither AOL nor Yahoo are particularly well-regarded brands these days. Oath may be an attempt to imply security and reliability, something that Yahoo is not known for after hundreds of millions of customer accounts were hacked.
The job losses account for around 15% of Yahoo and AOL's workforce, and will reportedly be applied across the globe. Some of those positions will be duplicate roles in finance, HR, and other admin departments, but cuts to editorial and product teams are also possible.
In unrelated news, Yahoo also voted today to approve the final compensation for its executive team. Marissa Mayer, Yahoo's outgoing CEO, stands to make $186 million from the sale. During her five-year tenure as CEO, she made a number of dubious moves, like a $1.1-billion acquisition of Tumblr and paying a teenager $30 million for an app with no underlying technology or code.