Advice For Yahoo!s, From Yahoo!s

Advice For Yahoo!s, From Yahoo!s

There are two Yahoo!s in Silicon Valley.

There's the struggling Web portal. It's known for being bureaucratic, timid and indecisive. It laid off 1,500 employees Wednesday as it conducts a public--and very awkward--search for a new chief executive. This Yahoo!'s (nasdaq: YHOO - news - people ) shares are down more than 40% this year.

Are you a former Yahoo! employee with advice for recently laid off colleagues? Share your advice in the Reader Comments section, or send your thoughts to bcaulfield@forbes.net.

Then there's the other Yahoo! It's the network of former Yahoo! employees, or Yahoo!s, who have gone on to lead Web efforts at big companies such Microsoft (nasdaq: MSFT - news - people ). Others are using their Yahoo!-honed Web smarts to good use working as venture capitalists.

Then there are the scores of former Yahoo!s running fast-moving start-ups around Silicon Valley. Here are excerpts from interviews with former Yahoo!s with advice for those who have just left the company, or anyone pondering their next career move. [See "Meta Data: Jerry's Good-bye Note."]

On finding the right job: I would tell people what I have told dozens or hundreds of Yahoo! people I have talked to about leaving. You've got to think back on what you really do the best and love doing the most. Now [balance] that with the question: How will this particular opportunity you're interested in make money? I really do think it's a balance. Too many people have done the first and are thrilled about what they're doing, but over the long term it unravels. On the other hand, people who only chase things that could be super lucrative aren't really passionate about what they're doing and later wonder in retrospect if they ever were. --Elizabeth Blair, chief executive officer, Brand.net

On flexibility: Be open. Lift your head out of what you've done and realize it is a very big world out there, the only thing that makes it feel small is when you're not open to new things. If you've only worked at big companies, maybe you should consider small companies.