No big surprise, Terry Semel had enough money already before he started so there was no large driver except for "goodwill"

And Susan Decker have been on the path for a long time, so she will most likely take over as CEO one day.

AP [news.yahoo.com]:

Yahoo Inc. Chairman Terry Semel ended his six-year tenure as chief executive officer Monday and will hand over the reins to co-founder Jerry Yang in the Internet icon's latest attempt to regain investor confidence. Semel, 64, will remain chairmain in a non-executive role.

Besides naming Yang as its new CEO, Yahoo appointed Susan Decker as its president. Decker, who had been recently promoted to oversee Yahoo's advertising operations, had widely been seen as Semel's heir apparent.

REUTERS [news.yahoo.com]:

Chairman and Chief Executive Terry Semel is stepping down as CEO and will be replaced by co-founder Jerry Yang, the company said on Monday, following investor pressure for a change in management that sent shares up 8 percent in extended trade.

AFP [news.yahoo.com]:

"As we discussed my future goals and plans, I was clear in telling the board of my desire to take a step back sooner rather than later. I believe Jerry and Sue, with their superb talents and intense dedication to Yahoo and its people, are the perfect combination to carry us forward.

"This is the time for new executive leadership, with different skills and strengths, to step in and drive the company to realize its full potential -- it is the right thing to do, and the right time is now," Semel said.

Nice - I so want to see Yahoo start competing (more than they are now) with Google!

poor Terry...oh wiat: poor billionaire Terry :)
On the other hand, he did turn Y around a while back, just his time apparently has passed.

Yo Y!...re-include my site and bad things will stop happening to you. You think it is a coincidence, right?

hell....it's about time.

Actually this is a very bad news for the webmasters because it will mean the end of road for Yahoo search. There is a possibility of an alliance with AOL or News Corp and handing over the search to Google, which will mean less competition in the search marketplace.

From MSNBC [msnbc.msn.com]

In fact, one idea that News Corp. has been studying, according to sources, would involve the sale of its MySpace division to Yahoo for a significant stake in the company. Bankers believe MySpace could be worth as much as $10 billion in such a deal, though it's far from clear Yahoo would agree. If it did, News Corp. might be able to have as much as a 25 percent stake in Yahoo. Any deal, which again is in its early stages, would also involve Yahoo outsourcing its search to Google, which currently plays that role for MySpace.

A similar idea has come up in meetings investors have had recently with Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons. Parsons has responded to speculative questions about an AOL-Yahoo link up by saying that a combination of AOL and Yahoo could make sense, if search was taken over by Google, for a significant fee.

[edited by: iThink at 9:35 pm (utc) on June 18, 2007]

That nbc specualtion is just that - speculation by a failing news network. (Remember that Yahoo has partnered heavily with CBS- arch enemy of NBC). I think it means the resurrection of Yahoo Search. Semel was the @)*(!# that killed it and buried it under layers and layers of homepage media "Be all - end all" crap. With Jerry back at the helm, I think we will see a strongly renewed Yahoo with a fresh focus back on search and even his old killer Directory.

hope it goes international i means ypn

Couldn't agree more. The "Google" approach works as far as innovation, product rollout, and coming up with great technology people can use. Now MSFT needs to realize this.

It is possible that they can shelve YPN too. They have that Right media thing. What do they need YPN for? Even though the Right Media thing was still a bad deal in my mind. I wonder if Yang will back out of it?

Put the technologist back in charge! Of course, the cynic in me notes that Semel will still be around telling people what to do. Perhaps this was just a move to keep the stock analysts happy - and bump the options up for Semel

You guys have to remember Yahoo does great internationally...

You guys have to remember Yahoo does great internationally...

In Japan, besides that - where? Internationally, Google is blowing the doors off Yahoo in our sector everywhere world-wide except Japan...

Good move, Yahoo. A change was clearly needed.

Yahoo only owns 34% of Yahoo Japan. The majority shareholder, SoftBank, is the primary reason for its success in Japan.

Plug in Altavista as the search provider and make your own king this time Jerry!

Google as search provider? Highly unlikely, didn't they make that mistake once before?

[edited by: TypicalSurfer at 1:49 am (utc) on June 19, 2007]

They definitely need to do somehting with search and that yahoo! Search Marketing Panama thing.

Taking the longer view, many of the big thinkers saw the potential in services such as MySpace and YouTube. What about iTunes? Why wasn't Yahoo the leader in video and social sites? How about music?

It's a tough question. Semel was suppose to be the guy who was hip to what real people wanted in terms of entertainment.

Even in news, where we saw Yahoo be very aggressive, there was no real innovation.

But, Yahoo does much well. But, it's time to shake things up. Semel gets credit with seeing that. It's a wise man who knows when to step down. I salute him.

It's about time he went. Yahoo have been slipping back against Google for too many years now. Hopefully there will be much more innovation at Yahoo from now on.

I think he did OK to stem the tide, but I agree - time for a change (or in this case, back to the core visionary).

I don't think that you will necessarily see the return og the directory though! The world has moved on and products like Yahoo Answers are really fantastic. Yahoo mail is also stil a market leader imho.

Remember that Susan Decker doesn't believe that competing with Google is the core vision [webmasterworld.com] either - so we'll see how it plays out.

Dixon.

I used to think Terry Semel was a good thing for Yahoo!. As the years progressed, I clearly reversed this thinking.

There is bleeding at Y! and it needs to be stopped.

This is good news, but they need even more fresh blood, especially in the search departments. They need to refocus and really make some bold moves there, and good things will come.

He sucked it up bigtime. All he cared about were brand advertisers, as a result search and ppc went downhill and now Google completely dominates. Killed the company if you ask me.

Timesonline in the UK is reporting that Jerry Yang is expected to be defending against attempts at a takeover [business.timesonline.co.uk]

Jerry Yang, Yahoo!'s new chief executive, will robustly defend moves to take over or split up the company after the embattled Terry Semel stepped down from the role last night.

Long-running speculation was ramped up on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley today that Yahoo! could be the target of a bid likely to value the internet group at more than $50 billion.

Welcome back Jerry Yang. Your company woefully needs you. Yahoo really screwed up when they made Yahoo powered by Google. Everyone just left Yahoo for Google and stayed at Google.

My 1# suggestion to you, Mr. Yang:
I dont want to log in with an account to view tv listings. I hate logging in to anything. Please minimize the services that require a log in.

Yang was there when Yahoo built its reputation as a directory, but directories are impossible to maintain now. The internet is far too big, changes far too often and is far too diverse for any human-edited hierarchical directory to be useful.

What has Yahoo got that any feed-based "portal" doesn't have?

Oh, man do I heard it right? Semel is out! That's one of the best in years. Semel was credited to turn Yahoo around but after it was about to float. Then he sank it.

Anyway, Yahoo has missed so many opportunities and mistakes that gave Google a chance to rise. If they has done it right at the beginning, we probably won't have Google today. I still feel bad for Yahoo.

Hopefully with a new captain, they can turn the ship around and running at the full speed.

If I was Yahoo, I will:
* Rebranding Altavista to its glory day
* Focus on search to regain market share
* Gain market share on their properties
* Gain the search distribution market through its partners.
* Focus on technology to outpace Google. Fast and innovation are the mean to survive.

* Forming alliances with Ebay, MS, Aol ... News Corp, Ask which will help them instantly regain market share, advertisers, publishers.

*** Finally, Yahoo needs to what it take to put Google in a defensive move.

TN

Is Google actually making a significant and sustainable profit on anything outside Search?

If not, Yahoo might be content to simply go up against Google on Search, and if they do decide to do that then the first thing they should do is strip away all those news feeds and advertisements from their front page.

Google.com makes a great start page because there's nothing there but the search box and button. If Yahoo.com did the same, and threw in a lot of promotion to get themselves on people's start page, they might be in with a chance.

Google is the search engine of the world.
Microsoft is the operating system of the world.
Ebay is the marketplace of the world.
Amazon is the ecommerce site of the world.
Webmasterworld ...........................

What is Yahoo?

If you can answer that question easily, then there is no problem. If not, Yahoo will be in trouble in the years ahead no matter who the top guy is.

Yahoo is the old del.icio.us?