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The sinking house of Yang

• Maggie Shiels
• 20 Jun 08, 09:15 GMT

While Yahoo punches out fun facts on its website, here's one I bet it won't be bleating about. More senior executives have jumped ship from Yahoo in the last few months than at any other high tech company.

Someone might quibble with that 'fact' by punching out some numbers from say Google which has recently suffered its own share of brain drainage.

But it has to be said that with the spotlight on Yahoo following the disastrous Microsoft shenanigans, it does seem like the company is a bleeding animal given the number of top honchos who are calling it a day at the Sunnyvale firm.

The highly respected blog TechCrunch has done a great job actually tracking exiting Yahoo execs since January 2007. Mike Arrington has listed 50 people who have decided to pack it in and that's everyone from the VP of engineering to the VP of Global Research and from former CEO Terry Semel to Ambassador Plenipotentiary to Madison Ave Yahoo!

What!

This week alone must surely have shareholders wondering what on earth is going on. Six high level execs have quit including the talent behind the phenomenally successful photo sharing site Flickr which Yahoo bought in 2005 to arguably give them some street cred.

And now comes news that another three major lynchpins in the organisation are set to call themselves ex-Yahoo employees and perhaps sign up to the Yahoo alumni page on Facebook which boasts thousands of former Yahoo-ites!.

The three who are leaving are Qu Li, head of search and monetization who has been described by insiders as a 'rock star' and 'someone that people would go to war for"; Vish Makhijani the head of Yahoo Search and Brad Garlinghouse the head of press. Actually Mr Garlinghouse only has one foot out the door according to some reports.

He is however famed for his 2006 Peanut Butter Manifesto in which he said "I've heard our strategy described as spreading peanut butter across the myriad opportunities that continue to evolve in the online world.

The result: a thin layer of investment spread across everything we do and thus we focus on nothing in particular. I hate peanut butter."

Hours after the news broke of this trio's departure came the confirmation that Joshua Schachter who founded del.icio.us, which Yahoo bought in 2005, has also decided to resign and join the "gloriously unemployed."

Greg Sterling who is a tech analyst and writes for searchengineland.com told the BBC "This all looks bad for Yahoo because it's happening so publicly and will impact on morale and those workers doing the actual work at a lower level."

Yahoo's statement to the BBC was pretty bland saying "We have a deep and talented management team across all areas of the company. Yahoo continues to be a leader in our industry and remains a unique, exciting and important place to work."

Not anymore I guess according to the myriad number of senior execs who have chucked it all in at the internet portal.

It has been rumoured for weeks that Yahoo is planning a major re-organisation and maybe this slew of senior execs are jumping before being pushed.

Mr Sterling ventures "The company has been through a number of re-organisations in the last year and perhaps there is a big of re-org fatigue."

And this all begs the question when will Jerry Yang walk the plank? He might have just celebrated one year in office as CEO, but it's looking pretty doubtful there will be a second anniversary.

The decision by so many high profile senior managers of the company to quit "is akin to a parliamentary vote of no confidence in Jerry Yang" says Mr Sterling.

Shareholders for their part will get to exercise their voice at the annual shareholders meeting on the 1st of August. It's certainly gearing up to be a rip roaring occasion.

And if any departing staff are unsure where to next hitch their wagon, they would do well to have a look at the full page advert that Microsoft has posted in the San Jose Mercury News.

The ad informs prospective employees "There are now very few companies that remain truly committed to defining the future of search and online advertising. Microsoft is one of them."

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