Yahoo Still Bleeding Execs, Reorg Coming (YHOO)

Peter Kafka | June 19, 2008 7:35 AM

cleaver.jpgWe've been hearing rumblings about a coming reorg/exec exodus at Yahoo, and this morning, Kara Swisher offers more details: She says Qi Lu, EVP of the search and advertising tech group, is leaving. Who else is going?

Better question -- who else is staying? Kara:

Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and President Sue Decker should be worried about just about everyone at this point, from Connected Life EVP Marco Boerries to Platforms and Infrastructure division EVP Ash Patel to the quartet of execs under Weiner.

Any insecurity in that group—Front Door and Network Services’ Tapan Bhat, Brad Garlinghouse, who heads Yahoo’s communications and communities arenas, Media Group head Scott Moore and Yahoo Search’s Vish Makhijani.–and other SVPs on that level really, are especially worrisome, as the voids above and below them become larger and offers from the outside more enticing.

UPDATE: TechCrunch now adds two more names to the leaving list: Vish Makhijani and Brad "Peanut Butter" Garlinghouse. Seconded by the NYT and many others.

Henry Blodget has already suggested an employee retention strategy for Jerry -- one that involves a baseball bat and other incentive programs. It's not clear that Jerry has picked up on the memo.

But Kara says he and Sue are indeed planning a reorg, one that will give Sue's ally Hillary Schneider even more clout. This is also a good explanation for the current hiring freeze -- tough to make hires when the org chart's about to get scrambled. Anyone want to weigh in with details? Tips@alleyinsider, or use our anonymous tip box.

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32 Comments

BicoastalDude said:
Qi Lu is really a rock star - he was bummed he didn't get the overall CTO role - Jerry should have done something significant role-wise to keep him on the field (just one more example of bad org thinking from the whole YHOO management team). Qi had a big role in stepping in to fix Panama when it came off the rails, and for that, I give him major props. This loss is a lot bigger than some of the other ones, imho.

At first, I thought the attrition issue was manageable, but I have second thoughts now - something big and fundamental is afoot.
Are Jerry and Sue addressing internally at all? Really seems to have hit the level of crisis.
stone said:
Henry,

I'm hearing the same thing --- people cannot get out fast enough.
ousideIN said:
@Henry

Why does Decker continue to pillage the place while usimg Yang for cover...is he that green??

After listening to her speak a dozen times and observing how she responds to questions, not eliminating her is the firm's largest mistake. Bravo, she has a pedigree & sits on BRK's board, but probe a level deeper and there is absolutely nothing there.

It is both entertaining and sad to see how she has set Yang up for the fall and for her to take over.

An article on her snake-like ways is in order Henry.
Jean said:
sadly, hilary schneider seems to be the winner - what a model, pick leadership from the digital newspaper industry to compete w Google. Between this and Decker, suddenly this looks like a company run by powerpoints and vacant empty suits, not industry vision and passion.

enter stage left, the fat lady
ysm said:
i can't say enough about how important qi is to most of us. he might be a few if not only one senior level manager at today's yahoo! engineers truly respect. he's the morale of many engineers and certainly chinese yahoo!. i won't be surprised to see more ppl leaving because of this. it's really sad to see him go.


yahoo said:
As I commented earlier, more execs are going to bite the dust. When one of the yahoos gave feedback saying "we have too many non-performing execs. They should let go", Jerry said "that's temptng". What does it tell you? He had already thought of it. Qi Lu may have rushed in to sail Panama but he goofed up in a big way (not many people except the top, knows about this) later on.

Most of the ones who "left" didn't have anything to their credit for the past few years. They kept piling stock options while the market share sank. Jeff Weiner, for example, talks great, comes on as smart. But what has he done? Nothing! Yahoo did great when there were very few execs. There was no politics. On one hand you keep writing that non achievers should go. But when they leave, you write that Yahoo is sinking, Yahoo has problem keeping "top" people. I don't know if you know, we have a review system. If you get a 5, you are a star, if you get a 2, you need to resign.
GIL C. said:
Are all these executives leaving yahoo entitled for the severance package that Yang and the BOD designed ?
yahoo2 said:
I agree with pretty much everything yahoo said. Except Qi Lu - he is the hardest working executive you will ever find. That is not an exaggeration.

I do agree that Qi Lu didn't do well with Panama over the last two quarters, but, he can take a lot of credit for a successful initial launch.

In my own list of underperforming execs, Qi Lu will be towards the end. And, Jeff Weiner towards the top! Under his watch, our search share slipped from 30+% to 20%. For that alone, he should have been kicked out.

Jeff Weiner is an example of a set of top yahoo execs, who talk a lot (frankly, I dont like his speeches), but lack the intellectual firepower to take on Google.
RandomYGuy said:

The only real loss of all the people leaving is Qi's loss.

As yahoo2 pointed out - under Jeff's watch - the company lost search market share, lost myyahoo market share (put that on tapan too), went practically nowhere with social {networking|search|blah}. The only place where it continued to keep the number 1 spots are (1) those that don't really matter for audience numbers point of view or (2) there was no real competition.
He's a great talker though. He can really pump up a crowd.
Neek said:
Henry Blodget has already suggested an employee retention strategy for Jerry -- one that involves a baseball bat and other incentive programs. It's not clear that Jerry has picked up on the memo.

Jerry should take Henry's advice, and use the bat onto himself. Not only does he save himself from the slow death Y! is undergoing, but sure to make a lot of suffering shareholders happy to see him do something sensible for once.
stone said:
I agree with nearly all the comments here. The intellectual firepower is the key here. Google is formidable. One cannot take them on without a very conhesive product strategy, one which very few people on earth have.
mi5 said:
Henry Blodget is a crook.
ly said:
the biggest loss was wenda last year. no matter what crap products they had, she could have sold it and fired the people of to sell even more of it.

but no, she wasn't 'searchy' enough. yahoo lost sight of all the TV dollars they COULD have been getting as they sat and watched google take all the search dollars.



yankini said:
I guess Qi Lu is a casualty of Yahoo-Google deal. If search takes a back seat, Qi Lu would have had a very difficult time keeping search engineers under him.
yahooo said:
I don't think anybody will miss Vish Mikhijani or Ash Patel. As for Brad Garlinghouse and Tapan Bhat, there are people internally to replace them. If they left that would be because they were not given Usama Fayyad's position. In any case, entire search group now has a sword hanging over its head. People who leave when the company is in crisis are not very reliable anyway. I believe they simply can not meet the challenge. We can always find people. There aren't many large competitor companies out there who give stock options or whose stock options will actually be cash worthy.
valleygrunt said:
Henry,
I have to wonder whether Jerry did use the technique you proposed:- All execs who are ready to go to the mattresses, stick around and lets make it work; rest of you, please don't let the door hit you on your rear on your way out...

Bjorn Tipling (URL) said:
I'm not sure I agree that all the brain power is at Google. Yeah their search share is increasing, and yeah it's easy to find stuff on there and yeah they have a lot of cool free software and yeah if they went away my productivity would suck and I would hate the internet, but besides all that...uh I forgot my point.
a sad yahoo said:
LOL at Bjorn...

jerry yang is seriously going to get axed if he doesn't stem the yahoo bleeding
bcst said:
OMG Jeff Weiner left? How did I not notice that in my day-to-day working life at Yahoo? Could it be because he did absolutely nothing for me, my co-workers and the company in general?

Thanks for nothing to yet another MF POS yahoo exec.
Yahoo said:
Sue may be a good CFO, but I have been to her Q&A at all-hands, etc and she doesn't look convincing and most of the time she is doing a pep talk. Some one with newspaper / publishing industry background trying to lead Yahoo makes it a fact that Y! still thinks it is a media company.
pi said:
So Jerry and his dum crew will have another all-hands meeting talking about this stuff and trying to get the morale up, saying, we are doing our best (screwing) and all engineers should just focus and work hard but not worry about executive(dum) decision making. Jeez!!!!!!!!!

This is the time, get the execs/directors/managers who just talk out of the company, promote smart and dedicated engineers to run the company. Clean house!!!!
AnotherYahoo said:
Qi might be a good research scientist but never worked well as a SVP. See, panama is a failure and so will be the new platform. I donot get a reason why he will stay at the position.
Yahoo Indeed said:
AMP/Apex is a train wreck in motion. The front cars are off the track and all that's left is for the locomotives in the rear to pour on the steam in an effort to get to the scene of the accident.

I've seen a lot of talented people jump from the train, more interested in living than death marching.
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