With Yahoo now looking for a new leader, Silicon Valley’s favorite parlor game is picking a new CEO for the embattled company. Plenty of names are being bandied about, from former AOL CEO Jonathan Miller (whose non-compete with Time Warner expires next March) to OpenTable CEO and former eBay superstar exec Jeff Jordan. Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman is also being thrown out as a possibility, but she is not interested.
Other strong candidates include Google senior VP Tim Armstrong (who heads up North American ad sales), former Yahoo COO Dan Rosensweig (as we’ve noted before), and Marc Andreessen. Mark Cuban would have been interesting too, but he has other things to worry about right now.
Less likely names, in my opinion, are current president Susan Decker, Juniper CEO Kevin Johnson (who tried to buy Yahoo when he was at Microsoft), or Carl Icahn’s hand-picked board members Frank Biondi, Jr. and John Chapple. News Corp president Peter Chernin is also mentioned as a perennial candidate, but he seems better off where he is running Murdoch’s empire.
What Yahoo really needs is new blood, most likely someone not on the list below. Picking an old-media executive like Biondi or Chernin would risk repeating the same mistake Yahoo made when it put former Warner Brothers CEO Terry Semel at the helm. But it can’t pick a green startup executive either. Yahoo is a huge organization that requires a leader with at least some serious management experience. Vote below for who you think is the best candidate, or nominate your own in comments with your reasons why he or she should be considered.
(Flickr photo by Paul Fisher).
Bill Gates. Because then the Microsoft merger would go through and we would have a legit competitor to Google in search advertising.
I don’t see Sarah Palin on the list…?
Clearly she has nothing to do now but sit in darkness and freeze.
John Battelle. He’s the CEO of Federated Media. He has the visionary skills, the industry knowledge and leadership experience needed at Yahoo.
CMC!!!!!
They will never put a first time CEO in the role. It’s not a time or place to be giving on the job training during a turnaround. This task is not for the feint of heart.
Also, Andreesen can’t even be the CEO of his own company so how is he qualified to run Yahoo. Hello?
Mark Hurd – let him do for Yahoo what he did for HP/Compaq. Yahoo needs someone extremely strong on execution who can also build a competent leadership team. They’ve had enough “vision” to last a lifetime, and still have a huge stockpile of assets failing to be leveraged. Promoting from the inside (again) would be suicide.
Hurd might be good. But, Battelle can bring in his management team from Federated Media as they would be a great fit within Google and hit the ground running – vs. the time it takes to build a competent leadership team.
are you nuts? nothing against Battelle. . . he will tell you himself that he is unqualified!
Can Yahoo please just put someone in there that will tie all their online properties together with one “Yahoo Login”. A nice “powered by Yahoo” logo on everything they own would be nice too. Come on, people. Yahoo has some great stuff out there. Most “normal” people don’t realize that the stuff they use are actually Yahoo.
Does that take a genius? Ok, so maybe it does for some reason. I know I don’t want the job, that’s for sure.
slow news day ???
(Different clayton than above, unless I got really drunk, studied, and posted without knowing it)
I usually make fun of the pictures you guys choose, but this one, good call!
Microsoft would destroy what is left of Yahoo. I know that Apple is tight with Google, but Apple acquiring Yahoo makes sense to me. I keep hearing rumors on this page that Apple wants to get into search. And other than the iTunes store, Yahoo is much better at the online thing than Apple (i.e. mobileme)
Steve Jobs is everything that Jerry Yang is not…a leader who knows how to stick to a vision and make things work.
Request to add the former CEO of Flooz to the option list please.
Marc Andreessen? You have to be kidding me, he is a moron.
Steve Ballmer should be Yahoo!’s new CEO.
Mike your the man to lead Yahoo.
Meg Whitman
none of the names listed will bring any game changing substance to yahoo. thats what its gonna take to get back up to 30+ a share. without it 20 bucks will seem like an impossible dream. appears they need a temp fill-in ceo to bridge the gap for a sale at the current impossible dream price of 20 bucks a share.
LeaderLocator.com – front of the pack
Marc Andreesen as a serious candidate? Why not mention Mark Zuckerberg while you’re at it. Yahoo needs a professional CEO, not a (once-) visionary entrepreneur.
How about a wild card of James Kennedy, experienced technology and corporate finance executive, he just finished a big software M&A deal in San Francisco.
Mark
How about Tony Fadell. He’s the father of the iPod and he’s available:
http://news.cne...0081962-37.html
-Larry
Ted Turner is in the Bay Area today promoting his autobiography… maybe he should interview for the job?
Ted would certainly have a formidable presence at board meetings.
Dan Rosensweig +1
Oliver Samwer of the European Founders Fund… He might have some lieutenant style of management to him, but he surely is capable of doubling a company’s value within a year and subsequently selling it to the highest bidder
And he surely is no old-media exec.
http://www.euro...ver-samwer.html
German fella Michael Steib – he’s clever and had something to do with yahoo once i think, pick him!
Richard Rosenblatt, hands down. Former Chairman of Myspace. I saw his Web 2.0. presentation and he has what it takes. But, won’t leave Demand Media.
They need an animal with an ax. Ellison/Benioff type. Anyone lesser, they are just wasting more years/brain cells/valuation
I wouldn’t be surprised if Rajiv Dutta didn’t get a strong look. When he wasn’t given the top job at eBay despite many internally finding him the most qualified, he eventually ‘retired’ from eBay and recently became Distinguished Executive-in-Residence at the Drucker School. He has CFO and business unit leadership at eBay and is widely respected. Should be on the short list at least.
Surely it’s got to be Herbert Elwood Gilliland III, I mean he invented Yahoo! didn’t he?
My vote goes to Jeff Jordan. He has the enthusiastic spirit and skills to lead this company.
Jack Welch.
Jeff Jordan. no doubt.
What no write in vote? What kind of democracy is this?
Julia Allison?
I say Johnathan Schwartz.
If we’re going to kill off Yahoo, let’s do it right this time…
Bruce Chizen.
Expect to see some layoffs early next year.
http://thiscouldbehuge.com/
Fred Gibbons
CMC, without a doubt.
My vote goes to John Batelle too!
Oh btw
Check out http://www.jobstaxi.com
New Jobs. AiLive. Ning.com. Blizzard. AdMob.
It’s gotta be David Filo. He’s the only one capable of finishing Jerry’s good work.
I’m going with Bob “Pit Bull” Pittman.
Mike Effle may have a point there. How about Rajiv Dutta guys?
Eric Schmidt. As Silicon Alley Insider reported he is getting bored at google. He can come to Yahoo and then finish it off completely (whatever Jerry has left) and see the value of his GOOG shares / option move up. He need not even take the $1 salary
Haha…bitterness and jealousy are always good for a laugh.
You got my vote and approval