Yahoo faces growing dissent and desertion

Since Semel reorganised the company into three units in December, it has experienced a steady stream of executive departures, some planned but some resulting from disagreements about how the company should be run. Now two of those three operating units lack a permanent leader. The head of Yahoo’s technology group, Farzad Nazem, left late last month after 11 years with the company.

In addition, 17 executives at the vice-president level or higher are known to have left Yahoo since the December shake-up. Yahoo disputes the notion that it is losing people at an unusual rate, saying that it had named about 80 vice presidents worldwide this year, most of them promoted from inside. But some in Silicon Valley say that plenty of people are still looking to leave.

“It’s a buyer’s market in terms of hiring people out of Yahoo,” said a prominent Silicon Valley venture capitalist who asked to remain anonymous. Jerry Yang, one of Yahoo’s founders, said that many of the departures involved people whose positions had been eliminated during the reorganisation or who had planned to leave after a long career at Yahoo. He said the company has had no problem replacing those who have left with seasoned executives from inside and outside Yahoo. “We are promoting and hiring new executives at a pretty fast pace,” said Yang, who holds the title of chief of Yahoo. “People are joining us because they believe in the upside.”