BoomTown was all busy trying to think of execs to replace Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang, as pressure mounts on him to right the troubled Internet company.

But now, Yang’s position feels safer than ever and it’s his nemesis–Microsoft–that needs a new leader for its long-stumbling online services business.

Microsoft is already been cracking, according to sources, with a wish list of internal and external candidates that CEO Steve Ballmer is now considering.

Read More »

As Yahoo continues to be in limbo, pressure is sure to mount heavily on its CEO and Co-Founder Jerry Yang, and it is not a stretch to imagine he will not remain in the top job at the troubled company for the long term.

So who would be good to replace him?

I have six candidates I like, so here’s my short list (and remember, the last time I made one for the job of the No. 2 leader for Facebook, its current COO Sheryl Sandberg was high on my list).

Read More »

Be careful what you wish for, Jerry Yang.

Because after talking to a dozen Yahoo execs over the weekend after the Microsoft takeover deal cratered, most of whom are vice presidents or above, I have to say that your stock drop isn’t the worst thing you will have to deal with this morning when you pull up at work.

The worst? That’ll be the very hairy eyeball you will be getting from a lot more of your employees, who are scared silly and a lot peeved by the limb many feel you have dragged them and their stock options out onto.

Read More »

After BoomTown broke the news yesterday that top Google exec Sheryl Sandberg was tapped by Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg to be COO of the hot social networking company, I talked with her and got the usual blah-blah quotes about scaling and growing operations and building a platform and how she wasn’t leaving Google as much as “going to an opportunity.”

But, as loyal readers will find out in the weeks and months ahead, she is sure to make for a much more lively new character in our ongoing and near-obsessive coverage of the Facebook saga, which we at BoomTown HQ like to call “As the SuperPoke Turns.”

Read More »

If Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is serious about finding a true No. 2 to replace outgoing exec Owen Van Natta and more, then BoomTown has certainly at least two cents to add.
So here is our list of ideas, which include a number of women execs, since a list that Facebook has made apparently includes a [...]

Read More »

Yes, I meant it when I said that too much of the Facebook environment these days was like being present at a loud Wiggles concert in the kid mosh pit–and I have been there, so believe me.

Except, in the case of the hot social network, the Wiggles never ever stop wiggling. Or SuperPoking. Or Cartoonifying. [...]

Read More »