The New Bebo, Yahoo Layoffs, and Bailouts

$850 Million later, AOL has a plan for Bebo. Nine months after agreeing to pay nearly a billion dollars for Bebo, which is the third most popular social network, AOL has revealed what it plans to do with the site, Boomtown reports. Bebo has rolled out a bunch of new features including media recommendations and access to outside email accounts. It's hard to say whether any of this will help the site jumpstart growth, which has stagnated of late as Facebook surges. But it's safe to say that founders Xochi and Michael Birch made out like bandits. Check out Jason Del Rey's Q&A for more.

How to do layoffs, the Yahoo edition. I'm not sure if this advice is worth following. After all, given Yahoo's recent troubles, it seems wise to approach any advice dispensed by its executives with a measure of skepticism. But in case you're wondering how the beleaguered Internet giant plans to lay off 1,500 employees today, Valleywag has the answer. Based on the documents it looks like Yahoo is using firing consultants to smooth things over once the deed is done, a practice you can read more about here.

Wait, is the millennial generation entrepreneurial? In our October cover story, we said yes. Forbes.com says not so much. Writes Steven Berglas: "The oft-raised question—and it's a big one for the U.S.—is whether millennials (also known as 'The Everybody Gets A Trophy' generation) have been so coddled, so inoculated against insults and injury, that they are now too, well, soft to achieve entrepreneurial success." I've heard this cliché before, but I suppose Berglas hasn't heard of Facebook, Meraki, Borrego Solar, or the dozens of companies that have graced our annual 30 under 30 list.

Bailouts, bailouts. So it looks like GM and Chrysler are close to getting $15 billion in short term loans. And, according to the Wall Street Journal, Italy is scrambling to bailout the Parmesan cheese business (though this bailout is a lot cheaper: just 100,000 wheels of cheese, or '‚¬50 million). Got a better use for $15 billion and all that Parmesan? Tell us.

Senior contributing writer Max Chafkin has profiled companies such as Yelp, Zappos, Twitter, Threadless, and Tesla for the magazine. He lives in Brooklyn, New York. @chafkin