Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz is making the most substantive changes in her exec ranks since she did a massive restructuring of its staff in late February, according to sources close to the situation.

“She is continuing to clean the place up,” said one top exec about the moves, which are likely to be announced internally tomorrow.

Will these changes also extend to Yahoo’s board?

Read More »

Silicon Valley legend and now VC Marc Andreessen was making the interview rounds after the settlement between the litigation-addled co-founders of Skype and all the various people they were suing was announced this morning.

In an interview with BoomTown, when asked about the aggressive legal tactics of Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis that resulted in them finally seizing a stake in the Internet telephony giant by suing him and many other Silicon Valley players, Andreessen said:

“We did not take it personally. It’s a clean sheet of paper.”

Well, it is actually a torn, stained and very worn out piece of paper, but bygones!

Read More »

Carl Icahn, the activist billionaire investor who made such a noisy fuss in his quest to force management and other changes at Yahoo, is taking a much quieter leave from the Internet giant’s board.

He said “there was not a need at this time for an activist investor” on Yahoo’s board.

That’s true, of course, but here’s BoomTown’s quickie analysis: Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz completely ignores him.

Read More »

For many years now, one of our regular attendees at the D: All Things Digital conference has been award-winning movie and television director, producer and writer Barry Sonnenfeld, who is–as it turns out–a not-so-closeted geek in his spare time with a gadget column for Esquire magazine called “The Digital Man.”

Now he is branching out to a vlog about his geek passions on Crackle, which will appear every two weeks from wherever he is–either from his homes in East Hampton, N.Y. or Telluride, Colo., or from Hollywood sets.

Read More »

Maggie Wilderotter, a Yahoo director who was once under consideration to be its CEO, has told the company she intends to resign from the board at the end of the year.

She has served on the Yahoo board since mid-2007, during its most tumultuous period ever.

Wilderotter is CEO of Frontier Communications, a large telecom services company. Her departure means Yahoo will only have one women on the board–CEO Carol Bartz.

Read More »

According to sources close to the situation, AOL has been busy selecting the board for the company, which is still set to spin itself off by year’s end–even as it slows down a decision on a new search deal with either current partner Google or a more emboldened Microsoft.

AOL is using Spencer Stuart in the search for directors, led by well-known headhunter Jim Citrin, sources said, and the company has already settled on several outside candidates.

Read More »

Here is a video interview I did today with AOL CEO Tim Armstrong in Germany–really!–where we both were appearing at a digital marketing conference.

In it, the former Google exec talks about a range of things, including the possibility of charging for content, innovating in the graphical advertising market, competition with Yahoo and the upcoming spinoff of the Time Warner unit.

But what he did not say is just as interesting.

Read More »

Revenge is a dish best served cold–except, of course, when one decides to serve it piping hot.

And that’s just what part of one of the losing sides of the $2 billion deal to buy Skype from eBay is doing in an unusual attack on Michelangelo Volpi, a well-known tech exec in Silicon Valley.

It’s Joost-y, for sure, so step right up to this sorry spectacle.

Read More »

Oh, it’s the middle of August, so why not report this little tidbit: Former Google exec Sukhinder Singh Cassidy has been appointed to the board of the J. Crew Group, the well-known New York-based specialty retailer.

She is now a CEO-in-Residence at Accel Partners in Silicon Valley, after leaving her longtime job at Google, where she was president of its Asia-Pacific and Latin American operations.

Cassidy was also one of Google’s more visible execs and highest-ranking women leaders, so BoomTown is more interested in where the the 39-year-old will land next as a top exec at a Web operation.

Read More »

While John Hughes has almost nothing to do with the Internet, BoomTown–who is of a certain age–was saddened to hear about the premature passing of this director supreme of suburban teen angst movies of the 1980s.

He died yesterday of a heart attack at 59 years old.

His hit films included “The Breakfast Club,” “Sixteen Candles” and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” He wrote “The Breakfast Club” and “Sixteen Candles,” as well as “Pretty in Pink,” “Some Kind of Wonderful,” “Home Alone” and tons of others.

Here are some great clips online.

Read More »

It’s not often these days that you get any kind of public offering in the market for tech companies–so a lot of people in Silicon Valley and elsewhere are looking at the fall spinoff of AOL very carefully.

That’s because, even though AOL is widely considered to be an also-ran by Silicon Valley, many are very interested in serving on its 10-12 member board.

Thus, AOL, with Time Warner’s top execs’ involvement, sources said, has compiled a list of about 70 possible candidates–picked, suggested and self-nominated–and is now proceeding to vet them and begin the process of asking people to serve.

Read More »

Let’s be honest–even with the sassy stylings of CEO Carol Bartz, who will be appearing at her first Yahoo annual meeting this morning–there are few of these affairs that are even remotely exciting.

Last year’s Yahoo meeting did have a frisson of possibility, since billionaire investor Carl Icahn and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer were fixing to put the double squeeze on the board and, especially, its then-CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang. Also, major Yahoo shareholders threatened a revolt.

But, none of that panned out. Thus, this year is likely to be a snoozer in comparison.

Read More »

Maria Klawe, the president of Harvey Mudd College, has just been named as the 10th member of the Microsoft board.

The company also announced a quarterly dividend of 13 cents per share, payable June 18, 2009, to shareholders of record on May 21, 2009.

Klawe’s appointment is interesting. She is rather sharp–what a shock–according to her bio, which lists impressive credits as a computer scientist.

More importantly, Klawe said she will try to get Microsoft to focus more on gender issues in the computing industry.

Read More »

It took a lot of guts for Yahoo President Sue Decker to resign immediately yesterday and without the usual polite waiting period that happens in most major corporate management shifts.

In doing so, Decker left new CEO Carol Bartz with the cleanest slate she could.

It would be nice, then, if the man who was also just as, if not much more, responsible for the disaster that has been Yahoo for too long–Chairman Roy Bostock–would take a clue from Decker and outgoing CEO Jerry Yang and head out the door too.

Read More »

BoomTown’s got nothing, which is not something I like to say very much.

I am talking about the Yahoo CEO search, which is either being done by the Internet giant’s board in such elegant secrecy and with such amazing stealth that it is getting by everyone.

That or it’s business as usual for the Yahoo board, which so far has never met a challenge for the company it could not drag out painfully and with great public dithering.

Read More »