q2

and managers like it.

Is Marissa Mayer on the way out of Yahoo? This article which lists all her faults, summary of mistakes suggest a sort of open warning. Mainstream media like New York Times won't list mistakes of acting CEO because of the fear of backlash unless something is happening in the background like merger/replacement or some influential person(s) are actively leaking out his/her disappointment/frustrations.

Some how, I am getting impressions of HP's former CEO Carly Florina, while reading this article. Hope it won't end like that.

It appears Marissa Mayer is in hurry to prove something but without proper strategy. She is sort of mixing Apple's Steve Jobs way, netflix way, Google's data obsessive ways to somehow create some recipe for success.

I feel she has to cool down and make some original recipe rather than mixing from various other companies.Wall street, Yahoo Board and investors need to be told that turnaround may take at least five years and there should be no hurry in between just like HP's current CEO Meg Whitman did, irrespective of consequences. This can give her peace of mind and helps in creating a better strategy. It appears, she wants to rush but do not know where to and meanwhile falling. She has to slow down and rethink.

Also, this article can be condensed. It lists about yahoo from its start to previous CEO's, her hiring ...etc. Yahoo's past before Mayer may be irrelevant in the context of this article.If needed, URL to past article may be sufficient.

It takes billions of years for sun to die.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-j-eicher/14-things-you-d...

Moreover, if sun dies, how Mars/Venus will help us? They are in our solar system. Is n't it?

So we need not worry. Moreover if death is natural process, then some alternative star may born by that time. As of now, Science may not be that much advanced to capture new star.

But that won't give a reason to destroy/pollute earth and move on. Can you guarantee it won't happen to Mars or Venus?

It is just fear mongering, nothing else.

I read several articles on Dr. Dobb's. I can get various high quality details on various technologies with independent perspective. Several articles are bookmarked for future reference. Is it possible to preserve archives forever for future consumption?

I do not know about financials but I still feel there is place for high quality software industry related journal.

Humans are given earth and they polluted it, destroyed its environment in the name of development and now going after Mars or Venus...etc.

There may be some entities with good intentions in exploration but over a period of time, entities with evil intentions may join and story will be same like on earth, only timeline, tools, people, circumstances, places will be different.

Can any one confirm, this incident is the only time, Mr. Page wrote something on the kitchen walls? or he may have written several times, several things but only this got noticed and worked upon? In any case, this example as some "indicator" of Google's way is exaggeration with the level of available details.

There are lot of details we do not know and we may never know about what/whom led to what/whom precisely. Hindsight always appears precise. So please do not get fooled by hype/halo effect/propaganda/marketing...etc.

Conclusions may give wrong sense of comfort that inputs and the reasons provided are complete,sufficient. But it is doubtful and to write such a article, you can go backwards i.e. you may pick some evergreen conclusions/facts, take a popular success related to Apple's iphone or Google's search engine ...etc, pick a obscure/bizarre incident related to that, add relevant story lines/hypothesis in support of those conclusions and you may have a valid article.

Please note that, I am NOT saying this article is written in that way but getting those conclusions from a minor incident like writing on walls, attributing the solution -entirely- -only- to that incident appears like a stretch of imagination. Several past articles in the main stream media can be seen, where both successes and failures in the life attributed to strange/bizarre incidents rather than real hard work, sweat,planning ...etc.They appear like a part of Hollywood movie rather than reality.

APPEND 1:

What message should we draw?

If you are CEO of small startup, rather than talking to your team directly about real issues, write on kitchen walls or do some unconnected/unexpected thing where employees may not notice or understand the gravity/criticality of situation? If you do that and fail, some other management expert may write an article, criticizing your way of doings, which explains only success counts/matter but not methods for some people.

If you are an employee, then should we start looking at walls of the facilities for communication on important stuff rather than usual emails...etc and if by chance, some thing is noted, how do we know what level of importance should be attached to it or focus on it while ignoring the committed items in the pipeline?

Since Google became successful, that incident is lauded but if it failed, CEO and culture of the company will be criticized for insufficient communication. i.e. please avoid such communication to increase probability of success.

APPEND 2:

Downvoters: Please provide reasons so that if my reasoning is wrong, I am ready to be corrected. Downvoting without reasons won't help since I do not know what caused disagreement. Thanks.

I can see cars, buildings,greenery but I could not see a single person in any photo. Why is that? Why there are no people on roads?

I feel skeptical to read about history of anything or anyone. People are complex entities. We have rational and emotional/irrational habits/reactions ...etc. Generally, historians look at the documents left or recorded and construct some picture. But I feel, no one or no entity records every emotion, every reaction, every action they do or involve ...etc. So there will always gaps/holes and there will always be unknown unknowns. Sometimes, we feel, we reached conclusions and may be awards are given and after few years, some new leads open up and it may change whatever we know till then making us feel like fools to trust in the beginning. Then there are many, who won't record anything, no trace at all. We are around 7 billion people now approximately and how much we record daily about ourselves for others i.e. future historians? I feel recording for future historians is overhead. Writing diary for yourself is different thing altogether.

So in conclusion, please do not conclude whatever you read as final w.r.t history even though it may be detailed or how well it may be written. There are always unknown unknowns.

Take whatever useful in your life and leave the rest may be the optimal approach towards history, if really required. Otherwise, in general scenario i.e. for daily life, just ignore history.

>>>"HR is not your friend. HR is not there to protect you and your career. HR is there to protect the company AGAINST you."

Golden words and everyone especially new joinees need to understand.

can you clarify how value semantics are costly compared to garbage collection/explicit pointers?

Google is in real trouble if it really works as advertised.

Thank You. Looking Good and inviting.

Without going into specifics, Apple's event(whatever they reveal) is scheduled for tomorrow and so today is Google's day.

Today, some startup/enterprise somewhere in the valley may be making final touches to a press release on some bad/shocking news such as layoffs...etc tomorrow so that little attention will be paid to that, since most tech press may be glued to Apple's event.

Life repeats on and on as before.

Reading of such articles makes me wonder about the reports/ranks given by transparency international ...etc on corruption. Comment by @icantthinkofone in this thread indicates this problem can be seen in other organizations too. If that is true, then corruption is there across all public organizations in US. In India too, we hear stories of corruption but scale is different. I conclude, it is explicit in some sectors/countries and implicit/polished/organized in other sectors/countries i.e. indices such as corruption,human life quality are just instruments to point out at emerging countries and show them in negative shades while pushing similar issues in developed countries silently under carpet and showing them in positive shades (at least during preparation of ranks). After consistent media focus, damage will be done and countries will be forever labeled as negative and leaders,future generations will forever live in that pseudo bubble thinking that they are inferior/corrupt ...etc to developed ones. (Many Indians think America/Europe is heaven with no issues like drought/crime...etc).

I included human life quality because as long as systems are working, west including Europe and America appear good(seeing from very far) but once in a while catastrophe occurs(due to nature or man-made), then we will see ugly side (e.g: looting during katrina[1], London riots[2], riots in sweden[3] ...etc) as if that ugly side is suppressed under the weight of systems/rules rather than genuine intrinsic goodness of people living there[4].

My intention is not to show any one in bad light but to give the conclusion or correct the myth that just because a country is materially wealthy i.e. developed, does not mean that there will be no daily issues. If emerging countries like BRICS understand that, then they pursue all round development rather than blindly becoming photo copies of west in pursuit of material wealth and harming themselves like pollution in china[5].

[1] http://www.nbcnews.com/id/9131493/ns/us_news-katrina_the_lon... [2]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_England_riots [3]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Stockholm_riots [4]http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2011/03/15/why-is-there-no... [5]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pollution_in_China

please, name is "Gandhi" not "Ghandi".

I wonder if Tim Cook really reads that lengthy letter or some legal expert will just summarize the content. TL;DR version might be helpful.

How much time before?

It is known that yahoo has identity problems compared to Google/facebook ...etc. If you are a loyal employee, who believes in turnaround and stay till the end, this type of decisions can be painful. He/she may/may not get a chance to US and due to other family reasons may not be willing to relocate.

Loyalty, it seems, does not have any value in modern organizations. Traditionally, in India, job/career is viewed differently than in America. Job indicates some sort of stability to life and these sort of decisions, can crash those views. There are some who misused that stability and there are many who utilized that stability properly and create value to life,society.

I read in news the statements of visiting American CEO's that they understand India,localize their operations ...etc. My suggestion is, in addition to understanding "customer/consumer" aspect of Indians, please understand the other aspects such as society,priorities, values, relative importance ...etc too. If that is the case, organizations will be careful during hiring, making sustainable business models avoiding knee-jerk policies.

>> How many years has this person worked at reddit?

I do not know. It can be some days/weeks/months ...etc. You can read it as "after working some time" but integrity of the message/comment won't change.

>> The employee does have a chance at redress by an independent body.

What I mean is, independent body inside the organization, taking employees from different other groups so that they can judge fairly. It should not be difficult for any one since it takes just few hours occasionally but at the end of the exercise, everyone can have a feeling of fairness, justice and there will be no rumors/ill-feelings ...etc. After all, we are mere mortals.

where are the proofs that ex-employee is lying? It can be CEO is covering up. Is it not?

I do not know much about laws. After working some years at an organization, asked to leave without stating any reason can be painful, traumatic to the employee. Employee can be alone with dependents and all of a sudden his/her world can be crashed.

Basic human courtesy can be to let the employee clearly know why he/she is asked to leave. At least, after knowing the reasons, he/she may change his behavior in future employment. If reasons are not known, employee can never know in reality what mistake is made/highlighted/led to this drastic decision and some times that act may be accidental or any politics by some other person ...etc. Since the employee says " by not stating a reason. It's also really hard to work through in your mind." i.e. he/she is still clueless on what exactly happened.

1. Is it not fair/humane to give employee a chance to hear charges and to tell his/her side of story so that independent body can decide fairly?

2. Reasons given by CEO such as incompetence,inappropriate comments,not taking feedback by managers may or may not be true in reality since proofs are not provided. Software development is a team work. So some times, mistakes of others can create burden on other and management may not aware of real culprit. Feedback is tricky aspect. I noticed management sometimes can be highly opinionated without real understanding of complexity of work/problems/issues, solutions tried ...etc. Managers just for their bonuses/promotions or to appear good in front of their bosses, act as intelligent or knowledgeable, though in reality they can be novices in many aspects. So if feedback is irrelevant or if feedback lacks common sense or lacks domain knowledge ...etc, then how employee can accept it?

We do not know many specifics about the incident and we do not have proofs So we clearly cannot point out who is wrong but employee should have been given a hearing by independent group on the charges so that he can defend and if that independent group do not agree, then they can ask him/her to leave.

Even in courts, where death sentence can be given, charges will be told and accused can provide his story/point of view on what happened and then court passes judgment. Then why similar facility cannot be provided to employee rather than throwing out like used tissue paper? It does not sound humane at all.

In one of the companies I worked in the past, we found that for a similar server configuration, Dell provides lower quote than HP and others almost always. So I doubt, HP can compete on prices with Dell in servers and support.

How is this different to the strategy/plans outlined by HP's previous CEO Leo Apotheker before he got fired abruptly?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9o_Apotheker#Hewlett-Pack...

I agree that I am suggesting screening of only those, who are coming from Ebola active area. As this article mentions, incubation period to see symptoms by other humans is between one week to three weeks after infection. But tests may catch before. Since we are living in globalized world, where people move across borders, I am worried about people carrying virus unknowingly. Many parts of Asia are very dense and it may be overnight catastrophe if this happens. So authorities at the hubs of human activity (US/Europe/China/Japan ...etc) need to be more vigilant than normal humans outside.

Please note that "prevention is better than care". Thanks.

Edit: small grammar change.

Couple of points: ( If there are any downvotes, please provide reasons for downvote, Thanks.)

1. I understand this is an article about the impact of Ebola virus. But why does the article highlighted the religious beliefs of the doctors/persons involved? If we remove that religious aspect from the article, how the integrity/message of this article's content will be impacted? I think, there is subtle religious propaganda in the article which is unnecessary to convey the virus, its impact and required global effective response.

2. Effectiveness of Govt. organizations (excluding armed forces who are trained) in majority of nations, especially in developing countries is doubtful.Organizations like WHO, UN, World bank, IMF also have similar characteristics on effectiveness, unfortunately but with no other alternatives.

3. I am not sure about testing arrangements at US airports. Since US hosts people from majority of nations who may have travel plans to other nations, i.e. some sort of hub, virus can reach other nations quickly, if US authorities fail to respond properly. Hope arrangements are made to test people who are coming into US. My guess is, testing doctors/nurses, checking customs/security officials ...etc i.e. all employees at the interfaces i.e. shipping ports, airports need to be wearing spacesuit sort of dresses as mentioned in the article so that they themselves won't be infected and become carriers of virus. This applies to all other countries including in Europe, China ...etc. Is it happening?

4. What about the effectiveness of other forms of medicine like Homeopathy/Ayurveda ...etc on this virus? I think we need to have alternative options of medicines/treatments, given the danger and magnitude of the problem to humanity ...etc.

Is it an essential requirement that in order to design great products or market leading products, management is supposed to work and force others to work during insane hours, especially sunday night?

I am not sure how frequently these things happen. May be ok, when you are near major deadline/shipment date but not on every week. Are there no other ways to avoid them like say, internal wiki/intranet ...etc so that mgmt can search answers on their own?

Many people followed Steve Jobs authoritative style of leadership after reading various accounts...etc. I hope mgmts of other companies won't shift to these methods concluding falsely that such working hours are essential for great products.

Just like languages have versions/revisions, e.g: C++11,C++14, Java8 ...etc, having versions at major changes during evolution of OO might have helped in creating reference points which can facillitate discussions and enhance understanding i.e. like OO98, 0099, OO2005 ...etc.

Why downvote? What is wrong/incorrect in the above comment?

How can you included Middle East as part of East?

I never included "Arab, Persian, Turkish, Russian, and Byzantine empires" in my comments. I specifically excluded Mughals who are of Turkish origin. If you can include Russian empire in your logic, you can include America and Europe also. Nothing will stop you if you want to twist the facts.

>>> Oh, and of course we mustn't forget the Indian and Middle Eastern empires that would try to block a Chinese colonization of Europe on grounds that it was their turf.

Please provide proofs. An Indian empire thinking Europe as their turf? Are you serious?

Honestly, I do not have points to down-vote you but I wish to down-vote since you abused the power of down-voting without adequate knowledge on cultural differences or intentional differences and blindly followed what some authors might have told/wrote by looking just at superficial level.

There is a quality called "contentment". Ask yourself a question? If Europe was poor/ignorant/weak and East can exploit them, then they could have been used as slaves, right? After all, that was easy. Isn't it? Why that did not happened? Because there was no interest/intention in the so called "world domination" or "we are better than you" ...etc attitude.

This is the mindset/weakness of some part of west where you get confidence of your power only if you colonize/destroy other country. But if you are self-aware of your powers, then you do not need to exhibit them unless they are needed.

Concept of Colonization/exploitation intentionally was not part of Eastern mindset/attitude. If you want to speculate, you can but that cannot be truth.