Yahoo is losing another executive today. Patrick Barry, who heads up Yahoo’s Connected TV group, sent out an email to staff this morning (reproduced below) informing them that he is leaving at the end of the month to “move on to new projects.” According to the email (below), he is briefing staff right now. (Josh Jacobs, head of ad technology platforms, is also leaving).
Update: Barry confirms via email: “i am leaving yahoo. too much opportunity out there not too.”
Through a series of deals with TV manufacturers like Samsung and Sony, the Connected TV product brings Web widgets from Yahoo to your TV. As such, it is a pretty central part of Yahoo’s strategy to connect consumers to the Web and the information that matters to them most.
Yet one former Yahoo executive I spoke to says Bartz has never even seen the Connected TV product. Whether or not that is true, losing executives heading up the products meant to extend Yahoo’s reach beyond the PC is an indication that her attention is elsewhere.
Update: A Yahoo spokesperson also confirms: “We are conducting a search for a new head of Connected TV, which we hope to announce shortly. We remain committed to building upon the innovation and leadership the team has delivered in the connected TV category.”
Here is Barry’s email:
From: Patrick Barry
Date: Sun, 11 Oct 2009 19:01:01 -0700
To: Connected Team
Cc: Tapan Bhat, XXX
Subject: Moving on
Connected TV Team,
After 5 great years here at Yahoo, it is time for me to move on to new projects and aspirations. I am tremendously proud of all we have accomplished together, from defining the world’s best user experience for interactive television, to shipping our technology platform on millions devices with some of the biggest brands in the industry. You have been an amazing team, and I will treasure the great times we have had working together to overcome challenges and make an impact for Yahoo. I remain a big believer in our vision for the future of television, and I would not be leaving now if I didn’t have faith in your ability to continue to achieve our goals and extend that vision.
Thank you for the hard work, passion and commitment over these several years. I will miss you all.
I will continue to be here through the end of the month to help make sure our plans and partnerships stay on track. Please join Tapan and I on Monday morning at 9:30 in Chutes so we can answer any questions you might have about my transition.
Patrick
all spin. he is leaving because Yahoo is no longer a great place to work.
Especially when your making more money than your job actually creates.
+1
+1
Come on Bing! We need another player other than Google and Yahoo seems to keep heading in the wrong direction.
What’s wrong with Yahoo ???
Probably doesn’t care may be an understatement since she continues to sell off shares: reported from @ericjackson:
ericjackson: Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz’s Continued Share Dumps Reflect Poorly on Leadership http://seekingalpha.com/a/3jmz
no it shows she has a brain. the recent bump up over 17 is indeed a blip. this thing is going back down into single digits once people realize the bartz garage sale is about shrinking the company, not growing it
and when is it a good time for an exec to sell??? if you don’t want execs selling shares, don’t give them stock! she’s in her sixties, its not like she’s socking it away for another decade.
Different potential perspective: the Yahoo TV efforts are basically a pretty big failure… that could have something to do with it…
The Yahoo! Connected TV platform is already shipping on devices around the world from Samsung, Sony and LG. Vizio is next. Yahoo! is *the* player in this space and has boxed out the competition. Your comment is basically a pretty big failure.
Lots of technology has shipped yet failed “DJ” (let me guess – Yahoo! employee/PR person? a random commentor wouldn’t have used the capitalization quite so perfectly AND wouldn’t have gone anonymous).
They’ve boxed it out as well as they boxed out search back in 1999.
And not everything is about competition.
ok dj, now tell me who actually USES this stuff. and i don’t mean regular use, i mean how many people have used this stuff even ONCE? no one.
connected life is a relic of the semel era…back when y! was confused into thinking it was going to be at the confluence of some tech/entertainment nexus
Yahoo is Microsoft.
How much money did Connected TV bring in?
That’s what I thought.
Another Yahoo! executive whose payscale far exceeds their ability.
Good riddance.
Exactly. Nothing to show. Gotta dump it
” it is a pretty central part of Yahoo’s strategy to connect consumers to the Web and the information that matters to them most.”
LOL Erick, you’ve been duped into thinking Yahoo has a strategy!
How do you win against the Google Machine? Unless they start getting it wrong all of a sudden.
Good luck Patrick. We’ll see him as a great start-up CEO or in something similarly interesting soon.
“connected life”…what a f&*king joke. this project has been going on for years, with absolutely BUPKUS to show for it. one wonders what the staff was even doing all day every day…preparing powerpoints explaining how they were getting ready to make more powerpoints, real soon.
even inside y!, this was a ghetto project, and the only response it ever earned inside y! was snickers. loserville indeed.
its a real shock for people on the outside to see what happens during a real housecleaning. 50% of yahoo is unproductive. ergo, the company will end up getting cut in half at least
Bartz needs people loyal to her, not Jerry. Nothing much new here, nothing to see, move along….
Everybody knows people flock to Yahoo to get the name on their resume. the rest of the market is so foolish it assumes anybody who works at Yahoo knows the internet, even if they’re nobody
ha well said. used to be you would never see a y! resume on the streets…no one left the company. now you see y! resumes every day
i’ve been at yahoo for 8 years and never heard of this guy… so whatever. good luck to him, but there’s still lots of fat to trim and revenue positive areas to grow. connected life and things like that are distractions and get in the way of focus.
Circulation is good in this bussines, Although I never heard or seen ”connected tv” services
Bet its something for tv provide internet acces what I don’t have yet as anyone ”guessing here” PHILIPS is selling them recently though.
Yahoo should consider putting “basic English grammar skills” on the list of requirements for this guy’s replacement.
You guys are missing the point. Connected is at its apex and Barry knows he’s about to have his ass handed to him by the market. I guarantee Yahoo gets displaced from several OEMs next year.
Dear John…
I see a lot of ignorance in the comments posted here.
I know Patrick and have done business with him. The Connected TV concept he shepherded is a sound one and he’s been very successful in rallying support from the CE industry; trust me, no easy feat. Of course only history will tell, but I would consider him a pioneer in pulling together connected services to the home.
I won’t try and speculate as to why he’s leaving. Sometimes our fiscal responsibilities get in the way of true innovation and progress.
Good luck Patrick..
The day Yahoo gains a shred of respect is the day Carol Bartz resigns. She is so arrogant to think that Yahoo is gaining respect when Yahoo’s stock continues to plummet! When did Yahoo ever earn respect? Yahoo has always been, and will always be, a morally bankrupt company with no agenda and no future. Bartz is nothing but a piranha sucking the blood of this evil turd Yahoo until she kills it, which looks imminent!