• exits

    Is Yahoo done with search?

    Among the many windmills Jerry Yang tilted at in his brief career as Yahoo's CEO was his devotion to Web search. It veered on an obsession for him. It played into his decision to resist Microsoft's offers to shower him with cash, first for his whole company, then for just its search business. Is it a coincidence, then, that Yahoo's top search engineer has left a day after Yang stepped down? A tipster tells us Sean Suchter resigned yesterday, and speculates that he may be joining Microsoft. More »

    10:20 AM on Wed Nov 19 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    10,399 views, 14 comments

    Most discussed CurtisHippomedon: Am I to believe Yahoo doesn't have an iron clad NDA with its employees preventing them for working for the more »

  • yahoo

    Yang's resignation post returns error 999

    Can it get any dumber? Jerry Yang's post on Yahoo's corporate blog, "Stepping down," is throwing me an error message that suggests Yahoo has banned the IP address of my Sprint wireless Internet card, but only for their corporate blog. And yet the post is visible on the blog's homepage. It seems too bad to be true: Yang can't even say goodbye right. Update: The "999" error indicates that the server automatically throttled itself to prevent a surge in traffic from taking the site down. Yang's resignation blog post had made the front page of Digg, the news-discussion site. What does it say about Yahoo's competence at building reliable websites if Digg can take down the boss's blog?

    1:20 PM on Tue Nov 18 2008
    By Paul Boutin
    1,014 views, 2 comments

    Latest by deluxe2000plus: BTW: The blog runs on WordPress more »

  • exits

    Jerry Yang and the myth of the founder

    It is one of the most heartwarming narratives of Silicon Valley — the founder is abused and evicted by the suits and then returns triumphant. But that's not how it worked out for Jerry Yang, ousted as Yahoo's CEO Monday by a suddenly restive board. Until yesterday, Yang was never much abused by Yahoo's suits; if anything, he was coddled for more than a decade, granted the honorific of "Chief Yahoo" and allowed a say in the Internet portal's strategy. He held a seat on the company's board, and played a role in courting executives like former CEO Terry Semel; but until last year, he never had to operate a business. More »

    9:20 AM on Tue Nov 18 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    4,277 views, 8 comments

    Most discussed macbeach: I could be wrong, but I don't think people with many millions of dollars in assets lose sleep over losing more »

  • cubicle culture

    Yahoos quietly cheer Yang's exit

    In an attempt to boost morale at Yahoo, signs showing CEO Jerry Yang with cofounder David Filo went up around the Web giant's Sunnyvale campus recently. They had no measurable effect. News of Yang's resignation, pending a replacement, might do more to cheer up the troops. The signs have proved easily edited to accommodate the news. (Photo by docwho76)

    7:40 PM on Mon Nov 17 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    2,570 views, 4 comments

    Latest by Bornean: Michael Arrington on deck for next CEO. more »

  • exits

    5 reasons why Jerry Yang is done at Yahoo

    Why is Yahoo looking for a new CEO? Because founder Jerry Yang, in his year and a half on the job, has proven himself incapable of meeting the company's many challenges. Here are five key moments where Yang failed to rise to the occasion: More »

    6:00 PM on Mon Nov 17 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    8,760 views, 22 comments

    Most discussed Rock tha Hizzee: I'm guess you wrote this four months ago and just had to click "publish." more »

  • yahoo

    Jerry Yang's goodbye letter to Yahoo

    How untidy was Jerry Yang's exit from the CEO seat at Yahoo? Here's a clue: Tech blog AllThingsD obtained a copy of Yang's all-hands memo before the PR team had sent it to the staff. It must be genuine, since, like the rest of Yang's memos, it completely lacks capitalization. The founders of Internet companies are too busy, it seems, to reach for the shift key. What Yang does not explain: Why, when he took over as CEO last year, he took pains to say this was not a temporary job. His excuse seems to amount to this: The changes he has made at Yahoo are so amazing, so transformative, that it is a "significantly different company" today which requires someone who can "manage this opportunity to leverage the progress up to this point." Translation: Jerry Yang was the right man to be Yahoo's CEO, until he wasn't. The memo: More »

    5:40 PM on Mon Nov 17 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    7,220 views, 18 comments

    Most discussed Baroness: Bye, you rich dick. Stop abusing the English language now. Your lack of common captilization bespeaks a more »

  • exits

    Jerry Yang out as Yahoo CEO

    Yahoo founder Jerry Yang is stepping down as CEO, and a search is underway for a replacement after a tumultuous 18 months on the job. Which is curious. In a recent interview, Yang had just told AllThingsD's Kara Swisher, "In this uncertain environment, I think I am absolutely the right person" to lead Yahoo. He must have changed his mind; Swisher reports that the decision was a "mutual" one made by Yang and Yahoo's board of directors. Either Yang was lying to Swisher, or he was deceived about the board's lack of support for him. Executive recruiter Heidrick & Struggles is conducting a search for Yang's replacement. Finding a successor to Yang will be difficult — not because Yang is irreplaceable, but because he has made such a mess of things that it will be hard to persuade a capable executive to risk their reputation fixing it. More »

    5:00 PM on Mon Nov 17 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    7,486 views, 18 comments

    Most discussed bittergreen: Jerry Yang reminds me of William Hung. more »

  • corrections

    Pro journalists flub Dell CTO's departure

    This morning, I blogged that Dell had "unpublished" CTO Kevin Kettler from the company's executive staff page. Kettler had been planning to leave as part of a reorganization, but his sudden disappearance from the management headshots would indicate a food fight behind the scenes. Truth is, Dell had never put Kettler on its exec staff page. As CTO, he wasn't considered one of the suits. There's a lesson here for me: John Paczkowski, from whom I got the factoid that Kettler had been removed from the management page, can be as wrong as Valleywag when he really tries. Sorry for the error. I have only one question for Paczkowski's publisher, AllThingsD: You guys hiring? (Photo by CNET/Stephen Shankland)

    8:34 AM on Thu Nov 13 2008
    By Paul Boutin
    382 views, 2 comments

    Most discussed Balousek: Kevin Kettler hasn't been on the Executive Team page in the last year, if ever: [web.archive.org] more »

  • facebook

    Sheryl Sandberg's assistant quits, too

    What does Camille Hart know about Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg's plans that we don't? Hart, Sandberg's longtime executive assistant who followed her from Google to Facebook, has left the company after less than a year, we've learned, confirming a note left by commenter insidefb. We can't wait to hear Sandberg's spin on this departure. Remember her now-classic line about the series of executives leaving Facebook this summer? "There is no specific underlying story behind the few execs leaving our company," More »

    11:40 AM on Mon Nov 10 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    2,714 views, 8 comments

    Most discussed sggrf: something about facebook is fishy more »

  • ashwin navin

    Guy who screwed up BitTorrent leaves BitTorrent

    BitTorrent cofounder and president Ashwin Navin is leaving the company. He has plans for a startup incubator in San Francisco's Mission District. Good! That means he'll be screwing up far less consequential companies from here on out. Navin deserves credit for persuading Bram Cohen, the creator of the BitTorrent file-sharing protocol, for building a company around it. But that's about it. More »

    11:20 AM on Thu Nov 6 2008
    By Owen Thomas
    1,901 views, 9 comments

    Most discussed Tiki Tonga: Well hell, let's place blame were it belongs - the freakin' idiots who kept investing millions in a company commandeered more »