Semel's out; Yang and Decker are taking the top spots. Can this duo revive the struggling company?Except for the sudden timing, Yahoo!'s announcement June 18 that Terry Semel is leaving as chief executive was remarkable only for how few people were surprised. After all, the Internet pioneer had turned in one disappointingly slow quarter after another recently. And Yahoo couldn't seem to catch up to today's online hot hands, from search giant Google (GOOG) to social-networking services such as News Corp.'s (NWS) MySpace and upstart Facebook. At Yahoo's annual meeting on June 12 (see BusinessWeek.com, 6/13/07, "Yahoo's Semel Faces the Music"), shareholders very publicly laid the problems squarely at the feet of Semel, slamming his strategy, execution, and $72 million pay package last year.
But Yahoo's choices of co-founder Jerry Yang as new chief executive and veteran executive Susan Decker as president raise as many new questions as they answer. Chief among them: Is this just a temporary move, a safe choice to keep the Yahoo troops on board and investors at bay while Yahoo scrambles to come up with a new strategy? Or, after a year or more of rumors and talks of a Yahoo acquisition, does this just buy the company more time to field purchase offers?
Temporary Tenure?
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