Updated: Yahoo’s Exit Door Blown Open: Garlinghouse, Makhijani, Lu Leaving; Reorg Plans Still Fluid
Yahoo’s (NSDQ: YHOO) senior management exodus is picking up steam by the minute: next to go is Brad Garlinghouse, the head of Yahoo’s communications and communities group—and author of the infamous “Peanut Butter Manifesto,” is leaving the company, fed up with the current path the company is taking, we have confirmed. The news was first reported by Techcrunch. Also, not yet confirmed by us, but TC reports that Vish Makhijani, the SVP and GM of Search, is leaving to become the CEO of Yandex Labs, a new Silicon Valley research outpost for the Russian search engine Yandex, which is headed for a big IPO.
Garlinghouse is not leaving for any specific job yet, though if recent exec departures are any indication of where the wind is blowing, it would probably be a VC or PE firm.
Meanwhile, Kara reported this morning that the next one out the exit door is Qi Lu, Yahoo’s EVP engineering for Search and Advertising Technology Group. Lu holds about 20 patents and has been heading up Yahoo’s search revenue development projects. Updated: NYT is also reporting that Makhijani and Lu are leaving, and that Makhijani is taking on the CEO role at Yandex.
Our sources say any big reorg plans at Yahoo are still fluid, as the dust on any other senior execs staying or leaving has not yet settled. All these departures mean that Yahoo’s network division, which runs all services on the portal, is without its top leader and two of his four deputies. It is expected that Hilary Schneider, EVP for global partner solutions, will take on more responsibilities.
Menwhile, Jeremy Zawodny, the tech evangelist at Yahoo who left earlier this month, is now joining Craigslist, he announced on his blog...he will be working on the tech side.
Related StoriesPosted In: Industry Moves, Companies, Yahoo, brad garlinghouse
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Comments (3)
Jun 19, 2008 5:59 PM
this is all really great .... way too much deadwood there for years .... evolution in action ..... except for high school 2.0, the tech bloggers, they all think it is some fight in the parking lot ... nope, yahoo is going to be kicking ass pretty damn soon
Jun 19, 2008 6:39 PM
How many chance do Sue et al need to put a structure in place? They need to go.
Execs can’t necessarily be held accountable for the day to day execution of projects. They should be shown no mercy, however, when they CANNOT provide a framework to function efficiently.
How can you claim to have a cohesive strategy when you don’t even know how to enable its success.
Jun 20, 2008 8:13 AM
Thanks for the laugh. I think kissing ass is more likely. Yang and Decker are too lost in some parallel dimension to see they are planning on how to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic than lead the company out of the pit they dug for themselves.