All Things Digital

On Friday, BoomTown first reported that new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is likely to be announcing a sweeping new management structure soon, which can only mean the possibility that some existing top execs are likely to be broomed out, even as some new ones are ushered in.

“This is going to be a full-scale peanut butter recall,” joked one exec, referring to the infamous “Peanut Butter Manifesto,” which was sent around the company several years ago by former exec Brad Garlinghouse. It laid bare the problems at Yahoo, most especially a decided lack of decision-making and lugubrious levels of managers.

Here is the sticky skinny.

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As has been copiously reported here and all over, Yahoo and AOL have been engaged in never-ending talks about a possible deal to merge their flagging Internet businesses.

Now, sources tell me, the circle of executives at both companies interfacing with each other has been widened, for purposes of due diligence.

That includes Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, who is in New York this week–where AOL parent, Time Warner, is located–to meet once again with its CEO, Jeff Bewkes, to see if they can actually complete the merger.

Now, all this frantic activity does not mean a deal will necessarily be struck.

But it is just this kind of ramped-up blabbery that has many at both companies predicting that a deal will go through, sooner or later, as soon as Time Warner and Yahoo can agree on a price.

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Oh, this is just too good to pass up, so it is once again time for BoomTown to let you know exactly what Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang actually meant in his internal memo to employees about the hiring of Bain & Company to evaluate its troubled business systems.

Jerry wrote: yahoos,

it’s time for another update.

Translation: Yep! Still no adult punctuation! We might continue to face serious big-boy issues at the company, but we refuse to give in on our insistence on kindergarten spelling patterns.

In that vein, would you like a nice cold glass of chocolate milk before I get to the bad news?

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Now that he’s officially–well, Yahoo has not said so, but it is so–leaving the company this later summer, what say we blame Brad Garlinghouse for all the woes of Yahoo!

After all, Garlinghouse’s infamous “Peanut Butter Manifesto” was the key Ur-moment that one could point to as the one in which the curtains were pulled back at the troubled Internet company to reveal, well, a very sticky mess.

The 2006 internal document, penned by the Yahoo senior vice president, essentially unfairly impugned delicious peanut butter by using it as a metaphor for Yahoo spreading its resources too thinly.

So, as a memorial to the Garlinghouse era, BoomTown decodes the manifesto.

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As BoomTown reported last night, the Yahoo reorganization will be unveiled later this morning, with the slate of execs that this column outlined last week in its gory–oops, I mean, glorious–detail.

Sources said a more substantial public announcement has been pushed by Yahoo’s board–apparently, an internal email to employees was considered too–to show Yahoo’s new team and that the company still has a strong bench, despite a lot of exec departures of late.

Some more news: Yahoo will name Scott Dietzen to take over the job of SVP Brad Garlinghouse, running all communications and community properties and products under Patel.

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As expected, Yahoo will announce its reorg tomorrow morning, along the same lines as BoomTown outlined in detail last week.

The only issue that arose was over the appointment of Ash Patel to head the new Global Products group. His appointment was greeted with internal dissent, but Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang was said to have insisted that Patel remain on as planned.

Last week, I outlined the sweeping internal changes at Yahoo, which will again dramatically change the structure of management.

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Oh, Scott! Oh, Tapan! Want an extra office? Perhaps a giant sword?

Of the four powerful direct reports to former Yahoo Network division head Jeff Weiner–Front Door and Network Services’ Tapan Bhat, Brad Garlinghouse, who heads Yahoo’s communications and communities arenas, Media Group head Scott Moore and Yahoo Search’s Vish Makhijani–it seems only two are sticking around for now in the current state of extreme flux at Yahoo.

That would be Moore and Bhat, who are being quiet–very quiet–as the new reorg chugs into place next week.

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Company in crisis? Employees morale plummeting? Shareholders in revolt? Stock slumping? Barbarians at the gate?

The perfect time to get out the Rubik’s Cube for yet another Yahoo reorganization!

BoomTown now has the outline of the likely sweeping management changes at Yahoo, to be announced next week by the troubled Internet company.

The reorg, which will drastically change the structure of management, explains a lot about the spate of recent departures by top execs at the company.

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Oh, BoomTown had to say it, didn’t I?

But, as SVP Brad Garlinghouse’s fate is still uncertain at Yahoo, his edge-of-your-seat situation is the latest wrenching dramatic shift at a company that can’t seem to stop producing them.

While reports say he has quit, Garlinghouse actually has not done that yet and will not likely make a definitive move to leave for a week, unlike fellow Yahoo SVPs Qi Lu and Vish Makhijani, who have tendered their resignations this week.

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As BoomTown reported earlier today, well-regarded top Yahoo techie Qi Lu will be leaving, in a move to be announced today or tomorrow by the troubled Internet company.

One Yahoo insider, who characterized Lu as a “rock star” and highly regarded, said the departure was a “blow” that will be devastating to the engineering organization at Yahoo.

It also looks as though the departure of Search SVP Vish Makhijani will also be announced today or tomorrow, although the fate of Brad Garlinghouse, the SVP who heads communications and communities, is still undetermined but precarious.

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My special BoomTown Yahoo tip inbox is filling up fast this week from Yahoo employees–who, by the way, seem to like to use Gmail as their secret one–all buzzing about the next shoe to drop.

That clodhopper would be, of course, which major exec will leave the troubled Internet company, all due to a major reorg that is about the hit the company within the next weeks.

After the recent departure of Network division EVP Jeff Weiner and Chief Data Officer Usama Fayyad–along with the flashier exit of Flickr’s Co-Founders Stewart Butterfield and Caterina Fake–several sources tell BoomTown that Search and Advertising Technology group EVP Qi Lu is the next on his way out too.

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Jeff Weiner, as BoomTown reported in a story broken by BoomTown Tuesday and also yesterday, will be leaving Yahoo to become an entrepreneur in residence at both Accel Partners and Greylock Partners.

But, despite a lot of speculation, sources at the company said that Weiner will not likely be replaced as Network division head by one of his four direct reports.

Instead, sources at the company think much of Weiner’s organization could be headed by Hilary Schneider, who is EVP Global Partner Solutions, in order to better align Yahoo’s ad revenue-producing units with its products, software, search and services side.

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Yahoo’s board has been meeting today and, doubtlessly, its directors had a lot to talk about (more on that later!).

Of course, there’s the obvious topic of having to figure out how best to deal with the noisy stylings of billionaire investor Carl Icahn, who is waging a proxy war on Yahoo and calling for new management at the top.

But perhaps what the board should be focused on is the old management at Yahoo, especially in the levels just below the top, who have been operating the company under a lot of stress for far too long.

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Gas prices through the roof?

Mortgage crisis continues?

A looming recession?

You almost have to admire Web 2.0’s fight for their right to party.

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Recently, BoomTown, along with a passel of press, was invited to an outreach dinner, set to be held on June 9 at a San Francisco venue, with some top Yahoo execs.

This was somewhat of a big deal, given the typically cave-dwelling mentality of the company in recent days, due to the drama of the Microsoft takeover bid that has jacked Yahoo’s typically skittish approach to press relations up to dangerously shy levels.

Then the dinner was canceled last week suddenly, with organizers blaming scheduling issues.

That move set tongues wagging at Yahoo’s Sunnyvale HQ, of course, and sources inside the company began to pepper BoomTown with two key theories.

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