Cleaning Up Bozo Explosion at Yahoo!

Kara Swisher of All Things D broke the news with a leaked memo: Yahoo! will stop allowing employees to work from home. Despite widespread (and unfounded) reporting that this is a hard-and-fast, black-and-white policy, a source tells me a procedure is likely in place for exceptions.

In the memo from Swisher's story, notice this line: If this policy impacts you, your management has already been in touch with next steps. From what I understand, the "next steps" are not a simple either/or, work in an office or quit.

I know of at least one employee who has petitioned direct management. This employee expects to hear back from Mayer in 30-60 days to see if the CEO approves a request to continue to work at home. This employee is a productive Yahoo! veteran. In some cases, Mayer might have no other choice but to grant exceptions.

Swisher followed up her scoop by surveying the tech landscape inside and outside of Yahoo!. This spawned two primary conclusions:

Marissa Mayer sucks. Or she's merely looking to create a culture of collaboration that (A) lacks at Yahoo! and (B) will spur the type of innovation we see from Google .

Of course, general sentiment slants in the "Mayer sucks" direction.

Even the famous urbanist, author of The Creative Class and University of Toronto professor Richard Florida, thinks Mayer made a bad move:

As much as I love Florida and respect his work, he misses the point as well. Or at least he speculates past what might be the lead.