Following the announcement that Flickr's co-founders were leaving Yahoo, which I blogged two days ago, Delicious-founder Joshua Schacter has also confirmed that he's going. He commented to the announcement on TechCrunch, saying:
I was largely sidelined by the decisions of my management. So that was mostly the result rather than the cause, if that makes sense. It was an incredibly frustrating experience and I wish I was a lot more like Stewart [Butterfield] in terms of pushing my point of view.
Yahoo has not been well managed for some time, and it is currently in the process of a reorganization that is encouraging staff to think about their futures. As The New York Times pointed out today:
A senior Yahoo executive said a reorganization "is the worse possible thing they would do at the moment. In a time of total instability, the last thing you want to do is make people nervous about their jobs." He spoke on condition of anonymity because, although he was also considering options outside of Yahoo, speaking out could jeopardize his employment.
Naturally, Google and Microsoft are trying to capitalize on the situation by offering Yahoo's most talented staff new jobs. Microsoft took a full-page ad in the San Jose Mercury News to tempt Yahoo search staff to move to Microsoft's Silicon Valley campus.
In a short Technology piece this week, I wondered whether Jerry Yang would be able to hang onto his job as Yahoo's chief executive office, and said it seemed unlikely. High-profile departure announcements have flooded in since that was written, making it even less likely. As the NYT story says:
The precipitous exodus is hollowing out Yahoo's senior management ranks. It is also raising new questions about the future of the company and its top executives. Analysts say that the departures suggest that Jerry Yang, the chief executive, and Susan L. Decker, the president, are increasingly isolated. . "Wall Street has lost all confidence at this point," said Ross Sandler, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets. "The senior managers have clearly lost confidence in the strategy and have lost confidence in Sue and Jerry, and that's not a good thing."
If this is how things are going under Yahoo's co-founder Jerry Yang (who is in a similar position to Apple's Steve Jobs in returning to power to rescue a company in decline), then one hardly dare imagine how much worse it would be under Microsoft CEO, Steve Ballmer.
I hope Ballmer is wiping his fevered brow and telling himself what a lucky break he got in failing to buy Yahoo (and also saving $40 billion in his bank account). But I bet someone is whispering in his ear that he could lower his offer now and get Yahoo on the cheap....
