Tech

If It’s Wednesday, It’s Layoffs Day at Yahoo: Today, Digital Magazines Get Hit

Kara Swisher
WATCH LIVE
A Yahoo! lanyard hangs on an employee's workspace in the Global Service Desk area of the company's Lockport Data Center in Lockport, New York, U.S.
Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

According to sources close to the situation, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has designated Wednesday as the day of the week to make the massive employee cuts the company announced on its earnings call weeks ago. But, instead of just felling the ax at once on 15 percent of staff, she has dragged the pain out in several weekly layoffs.

More from Re/code:
It's official: Tech spending is slowing down in 2016
Google acknowledges it collects student information, but doesn't target ads
Facebook is ready to publish Instant Articles from every publisher around the world

And today, the hits seem to be largely happening at Yahoo's media unit and also in Los Angeles. Re/code previously reported that the division was going to see a lot of cost cuts, especially in Mayer's once vaunted digital "magazine" efforts. It was not so long ago that the company touted its splashy plan to hire big names to helm these offerings, in food, beauty and tech. All those are now getting consolidated and reorganized, said multiple sources, with some verticals going poof.

Marissa Mayer, Yahoo
Mayer: We'll make Yahoo the best it can be
An employee works at her desk inside the office at the Yahoo Inc. headquarters.
Yahoo to lay off 15%, consider reverse spin
Inside Yahoo's troubled advertising business

Politico Media just reported that Yahoo Tech's top editor Dan Tynan was leaving and that the tech vertical was being incorporated into its larger news unit. Tynan is indeed out, but Yahoo Tech, as a designation, will remain and its marquee tech reviewer, David Pogue, is staying. He was hired from the New York Times.

"I am sure that bigger and better things await all of us. As for Yahoo, I am sure it will continue to be Yahoo, for better or worse," wrote the still funny and classy Tynan in a farewell memo. "And some day we'll all have a good laugh about it. Just not this week."

Yahoo layoffs begin today
VIDEO0:3900:39
Yahoo layoffs begin today

Food is also getting smacked, as well as the beauty section. According to Eater, its well-regarded editor Kerry Diamond is out too and the site "is being phased out."

And travel too, as Skift has correctly reported. Top editor Laura Begley Bloom, who just replaced former top editor Paula Froelich, is gone.

Yahoo's media division is under the purview of Martha Nelson, the former Time Inc. exec.

CNBC's parent NBC Universal is an investor in Re/code's parent Revere Digital, and the companies have a content-sharing arrangement.