Yahoo Execs Exit Stage Left - InformationWeek

The rotating door at Yokel must be well oiled, because a handful of executive director goings over the last two old age have turned into a changeless line of them.

In the two hebdomads since Yokel announced Microsoft's overtures for the company and then its grouping officially dead and Yokel and signed a non-exclusive advertising pack, respective top Yokel execs have got headed for the exits.

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Among them are a few of the company's top hunt execs. This week, senior VP and general director of Yokel Search Vish Makhijani left to go chief executive officer of Russian Yandex's Yandex Labs, where he'll better Yandex's hunt technology, including hunt algorithms.

Qi Lu, executive director VP of engineering for Yahoo's hunt and advertisement technology group, is also on the manner out, according to respective reports. Lithium have been in complaint of edifice Yahoo's Republic Of Panama hunt selling system, the hereafter of which had been up in the air among the treatments with Microsoft and the eventual non-exclusive ad trade with Google. It's not going away, but Lutetium is.

Brad Garlinghouse, Yahoo's apparently outgoing senior VP of communities and communications, oversaw some of Yahoo's greatest ticket points like Flickr and Yokel Mail and Messenger. About two old age ago, Garlinghouse wrote a now celebrated memorandum called the "Peanut Butter Manifesto" detailing Yahoo's jobs two old age ago that used peanut butter as a metaphor for the company's failures. It's unclear where Garlinghouse is headed, or even whether he's left, but his going have been reported by both TechCrunch and the Wall Street Journal's BoomTown blog.

Among the others who've left in June: Jeff Weiner, a senior VP in complaint of networks, stepped down last hebdomad to go an enterpriser in abode at both Accel Partners and Greylock Partners. Usama Fayyad, former head information military officer and executive director VP of research and strategical information solutions, is leaving for untold pastures. Flickr laminitises Caterina Fake and Jimmy Stewart William Butterfield are leaving. Joshua Schacter, who founded societal bookmarking land site Del.icio.us, is out too. Another who's leaving is Jason Zajac, general director of societal mass media at Yahoo. Zajac have worn assorted hats, including caput of finance for the company's audience division and VP of corporate strategy.

There are a figure of grounds why top employees may be leaving Yokel in droves. A major re-organization could be one. According to Wall Street Diary studies Thursday, the company means to consolidate its e-mail, hunt and into one merchandise organization. There's also the looming issue of investor Carl Icahn's command to change Yahoo's board of executives.

Meanwhile, Microsoft took out an advertisement this hebdomad in the Jose Mercury News, one of Yahoo's hometown papers. "There are now very few companies that stay truly committed to defining the hereafter of hunt and online advertising," the advertisement read. "Microsoft is one of them."

And though it's easy to do Yahoo's failure to happen wage soil with Microsoft or the company's partnership with Google a whipping boy for these departures, there are some who are just moving on. Top Yokel revivalist and applied scientist Jeremy Zawodny is joining Craigslist adjacent calendar month after recently receiving a headhunting from Craigslist's CTO.

"I won't at all be surprised if some people believe this is related to Microsoft or Carl Icahn and the uncertainness surrounding Yahoo's future," he said in a station last week. "The world is that there's nothing pushing me out the door at Yahoo."

For its part, Yokel doesn't sound like it's exactly in terror mode. "We have got a deep and talented direction squad across all countries of the company," the company said in a statement.