The mass exodus of both execs and rank and file employees at Yahoo continues. In fact the real defections may just be getting started at a high percentage of employees vest on lucrative restricted stock units this month.
Yahoo’s head of communications Jill Nash continues to try to keep the resignations as quiet as possible, and suggests informally to press that most of the high level departures are really just a cleaning house procedure.
What a housecleaning.
Two more SVPs are bailing out. Previously reported was Todd Teresi (pictured left), SVP of Network Business. Teresi is now the Chief Revenue Officer at Quantcast.
Now we’ve heard that the number 2 exec at Yahoo Mobile, ten year Yahoo’er Steve Boom (pictured right), has resigned as well. Boom started in Yahoo’s London office in a business development role. More recently he oversaw Yahoo’s broadband partnerships with AT&T, Rogers, BT and Verizon.
SO when’s YHOO gonna be worth more than MSFT’s $45B offer?
Looks like a lot of folks vote w/their feet.
Right, because stock price is the only measure of a company’s value, just like real estate prices.
For public companies, yes.
Correct, the market dictates value. The value is reflected in the stock price. Right now $45B is looking like mighty fine given the fact that the company is only worth around $30B today. The $60B offered to Semel on the downlow looks even better.
Time will tell. Let’s see if they can get this thing over $50B come Jan 1, 2010.
Hmmm, housecleaning, sounds more like failure.
Do you mean a failure to adapt, change or grow on the part of the departing employees?
They simply want to expand their horizons.
These are brilliant, career oriented people.
It is not like in the old days, when one would start with a company like IBM and stay and work their way to the top
Actually, by having them out, Yahoo will become more lean and productive. Less management layer
rats off a sinking ship? or is this good housecleaning…
It good that all of these VPs are leaving. They had like 200 of them. Heck if they lose half of them think of the savings, especially with no severance package. They should really lose 2/3s them, but half would be good. Most of these people are the idiots who ran Yahoo into the ground any ways. Its good to see that they want to help with shareholder value.
how many execs do you need
it seem like everyone working at yahoo gets execs title
i bet janitors are execs too
nope, noe execs but engineers.
Sanitation engineers. Seriously.
I love Yahoo! i feel sorry for them :(
Who cares what people leave yahoo. If they want to go, let em. If they want to stay, stay. I dont see why it is news worthy.
It is news worthy when there is a serious void of talent and leadership. Lots of good people leaving is not a good thing. One would think Y! could make it worth their while to stay but maybe it is time for new blood.
D.
to the people saying that this will make the yahoo org more lean: who told you that these people are not going to be replaced by other VPs???? most probably, they will, and in the case of steve boom, certainly by someone less prepared. Steve rocks.
oh, yes, and you can add another name to the list: sabrina ellis, vp of messenger, is rumored to be leaving (thankfully)
Also noteworthy is that Boom was Jerry’s roommate back in college
Mike, when are you gonna give your boy Brad Garlinghouse a sendoff? His last day is Friday…thank god
Yahoo would fight for those that are truly important. The recent departures will not have a long lasting negative impact on Yahoo’s value. Investors may be afraid of a supposed “exhodus”, but the truth is that Yahoo is still a very capable company with a business that is based on its outsanding homepage that attracts millions of uniques each day. Those “tallented” execs were, in part, the reason for Yahoo’s inability to capitalize on its traffic.
That being said, I can also say that it sure seems like the teams at Yahoo are working like crazy in order to find the way to capitalize. There’s hardly been a week that went by without them announcing a new product or an upgrade. I think it’s only a matter of time before we start seeing their stock price rise. It’ll take as long as it’ll take investors to figure out that Yahoo is still a monster of a company.
Really??
I would have kept Zawodny and a few others.
Conversely, you could argue Yahoo is keeping a lot of the legacy execs who are great at politicking rather than turning a ship around. The latter is the board’s job but they’ve proven worthless over the last couple years.
Net/net, Yahoo’s legacy will be measured by MSFT’s offer. If they can get their value beyond $45B in the next couple years they’re winners. If not they’ll go down as the biggest buffoons in the valley who’s self-aggrandizement lead to their demise.
Unfortunately, it’s the everyday folks who take the grunt of the punishment as the execs continue to prosper.
Todd and Steve are good guys and they brought a lot of value over the years.
Yahoo! might not be able to keep them regardless of the fight per se. . Sometimes people are just ready to split.
D.
If by “outstanding homepage” you mean over-crowded, ad-ridden, mess of crap that stands as the single best example of cheese on the web, then yes.
From the people I know, they use yahoo, cause that’s what they are used to using. Hell, most of them just figured out facebook in the last 3 months.
Yahoo go bye-byes
At the end of the day, Teresi’s departure doesn’t really come as a shock. Yahoo made some pretty major acquisitions in the past several years, and what they need to do is to show the street that they were smart. Teresi wasn’t well liked by many, and it was quickly decided earlier this year, that not he, but Walrath from the Blue Lithium acquisition would take the reigns of the “network.”
Walrath is known as a man who gets it done, and who can command an audience, and WANTS to be there helping to make Yahoo better. So, good luck at Quantcast. . . and keep your eyes peeled for Mike to make his rath known.
Good Luck!
I worked with Todd Teresi while I was at yahoo, and his departure is definitely not “housecleaning.” He was one of the few leaders who actually had great ideas, spoke his mind and didn’t suck up to the C-suite. On the other hand, that Jill Nash flack was widely regarded as an incompetent hand-me-down from the Gap who didn’t have a clue about Yahoo’s core business model. If yahoo intends to clean house, she should be at the top of the list.
I still have yet to see how any of this matters at all – unless you are a stock investor with some serious scratch in the game – 1000+ shares.
People leave companies like this all of the time. This string reads like something I saw on TMZ and which I say – who cares what those famous people do anyway? It is not going to have any impact on my success or failure in life.
Is there not anything else productive to talk about?
If you close one eye, and blur your focus just a teeny bit, they look like Page and Brin.