TechCrunch Desktop Logo
TechCrunch Mobile Logo

While Sacks Plays Poker, Yammer Burns

MG Siegler

picture-47So, as you may have seen yesterday, Yammer founder David Sacks is still alive in the World Series of Poker. In fact, he has to miss our events tomorrow because of it. But you know, there’s something that we’re missing today — Yammer.

The service has been down for a few hours now, with no signs of coming back up. Twitter is abuzz with the failure.

So while Sacks is busy playing Poker (okay, he’s actually working today, but still), leaving comments on our blog posts, and Twittering, his startup (which we love and use everyday, by the way) is suffering. Hope you win that gold bracelet, David!

Update: It’s definitely a hardware and not a software issue, we’re told. They’re still looking into the issue.

Update 2: After several hours, it looks like Yammer is finally coming back online. Our icons still aren’t working, but messages are going through.

Update 3: Here’s Sacks on today’s issues:

Yammer experienced a rare networking hardware failure which temporarily made the site unavailable. No data was lost. The site is back up, and access to user photos has been restored.

Techcrunch event

Join 10k+ tech and VC leaders for growth and connections at Disrupt 2025

Netflix, Box, a16z, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Hugging Face, Elad Gil, Vinod Khosla — just some of the 250+ heavy hitters leading 200+ sessions designed to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don’t miss the 20th anniversary of TechCrunch, and a chance to learn from the top voices in tech. Grab your ticket before doors open to save up to $444.

Join 10k+ tech and VC leaders for growth and connections at Disrupt 2025

Netflix, Box, a16z, ElevenLabs, Wayve, Hugging Face, Elad Gil, Vinod Khosla — just some of the 250+ heavy hitters leading 200+ sessions designed to deliver the insights that fuel startup growth and sharpen your edge. Don’t miss a chance to learn from the top voices in tech. Grab your ticket before doors open to save up to $444.

San Francisco | October 27-29, 2025
REGISTER NOW

As your article notes (despite the headline), I was in the office working all day. This is clearly a plot by Arrington to put me on tilt for tomorrow.

Here’s a video of Sacks and Jason Calacanis talking poker and their bet:

Watch Internet CEOs Play Poker at the 2009 WSOP on RawVegas.tv

CrunchBase Information
Yammer
David Sacks
Information provided by CrunchBase

Topics

MG Siegler

M.G. Siegler is a general partner at Google Ventures, where he primarily focuses on early-stage investments. He has been deeply involved in the startup space since 2005, first as a web developer, then as a writer, and most recently as an investor and advisor. Having spent the past year in London helping to get Google Ventures’ European organization up and running, M.G. is now back in the Bay Area, working mainly out of Google Ventures’ San Francisco office. Before joining Google Ventures, M.G. was a founding partner of CrunchFund, an early-stage investment fund. Prior to that, he reported on the startup world as a writer for both TechCrunch and VentureBeat. M.G. still writes a column for TechCrunch on top of writing on his own sites and from time-to-time doing movie reviews in haiku. Originally from Ohio, M.G. graduated from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor before moving out west to work in Hollywood. One day, he will write that killer screenplay.

View Bio
October 27-29, 2025
San Francisco


ONE-WEEK BUNDLE FLASH SALE

Founder Bundle Offer: Land your investor and sharpen your pitch. Save 15% when you bring 4-9 founders.

Investors Bundle Offer: Discover your next breakout startup. Save 20% when you bring 4-9 investors.

Bundle offer ends October 3.

Register Now
Loading the next article
Error loading the next article