What next for Semel in Yahoo shakeup?
Yahoo is plunging into a major reorganization, with COO Dan Rosensweig and media chief Lloyd Braun leaving the company, and with CFO Sue Decker taking over a reorganized advertising business unit.
Bloggers were wondering Wednesday morning exactly where this leaves CEO Terry Semel. Semel has been under fire from investors, as advertising and income have dropped. A from a company executive, meanwhile, had claimed that the company was "spreading its resources too thin, like peanut butter on a slice of bread."
Are the latest changes paving the way for Semel's departure, or saving his skin?
Blog community response:
"Amidst all this change, not a single word or regret or reality check from Terry Semel in his official blog post on Yahoo corporate blog. Earlier today we did a post about whether Semel should be fired by the board. Well, nothing that drastic happened tonight. But you have to believe that this is his last chance...he has survived for another 6 months. Another re-check will probably happen by summer and if any CEO change is to happen, will happen 2007 fall."
--PaidContent.org
"It's only been in the last year that the Yahoo CEO really came under pressure. Wall Street talk that investors would prefer Sue Decker, the company's CFO, to run the company."
--ValleyWag
"I'm fine with Sue's change. It's not a bad decision, nor is it an exciting decision. Instead it seems more like a Yahoo decision, with Decker being smart and aggressive, and at least somewhat more tech savvy than Terry Semel, which is all good, even if incremental. She is a finance person, however, so she is not going to be the go-to strategy person at Yahoo any more than Semel was."
--Infectious Greed
"I'm impressed with how Terry handled the whole Peanut Butter Manifesto thing. No word yet on where Brad Garlinghouse will sit in the newly reorganized Yahoo, but Terry's calm refusal to address the memo publicly, combined with rapid actions that acknowledged much of what it said, strike me as supremely professional."
--Internet Outsider