Longtime Yahoo tech leader Ash Patel is taking some time off until early 2010.
Yahoo confirmed the break to BoomTown.
In recent days, some inside the company had mistakenly thought the 44-year-old EVP for Product Architecture & Strategy was departing the company for good.
Actually, it’s more of a sabbatical for Patel.
In what should come as a shock to almost no one, the detailed negotiations to complete the Microsoft and Yahoo search and online advertising final agreement are more complicated than its authors anticipated and are taking longer than expected to complete.
Relax, folks–they’ll get done.
But here’s a more important thing that should wrap up sooner than later: Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz’s gibes about former CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang’s tenure.
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.
A few weeks ago, when I was having breakfast with legendary Silicon Valley entrepreneur Marc Andreessen about his new venture fund, he talked about what he thought was critical to being successful as an Internet company.
Ticking off names, from Apple CEO Steve Jobs to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Andreessen said he always favored technical entrepreneurs for one key reason: “You need someone who lives and breathes product.”
It’s a refrain I have heard a lot recently from a wide range of people in the sector, most especially when talking about two of the more challenging renovations of key Internet brands going on of late.
That would be: Yahoo and MySpace.
In BoomTown’s bold quest to annoyingly stick a Flip digital video camera in the face of every Yahoo senior exec, this week I worked the last nerve of its CTO and EVP of Products, Aristotle “Ari” Balogh.
Actually, the 45-year-old Balogh is a very calm and pleasant man, especially considering the huge responsibility that has been foisted on him by CEO Carol Bartz to rejigger how Yahoo makes its products and services and deploy its technology in a more efficient, centralized and, most of all, innovative manner.
To explain all this, Balogh sat down with me twice–he is clearly a glutton for punishment–to talk about where Yahoo stood as it sought to dig itself out of its long slump and reemerge as the potent Internet force it once was.
BoomTown is at the lovely Santa Clara Marriott in Silicon Valley at the 2009 Yahoo annual meeting, liveblogging the event, which should be spectacularly dull.
Here is a rundown of what went on.
10:05 am: The meeting kicks off with a little video presentation with various and sundry television talking heads saying “Yahoo” in quick succession.
Actually, this was the year during which all of those hype-magnets repeated “Twitter” so many times that it has began to make my ears bleed.
But I like the spirit of trying to make Yahoo seem relevant and innovative again.
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.
In exactly one week at 10 am PDT, Yahoo will hold its annual meeting in Silicon Valley, the first time when new CEO Carol Bartz will greet its shareholders in person.
She should prep carefully, as the event has been quite a drama over the last two years.
Here’s a rundown of what is likely to be on the minds of investors, including the status of the isn’t-it-rich-aren’t-they-a-pair relationship between Yahoo and Microsoft.
Well, what else is Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz going to do, but talk smack?
Not at BoomTown–that was so two weeks ago!
About potential partner Microsoft, of course!
And, especially about its new Bing search engine.
And, most especially of all, since new stats from comScore yesterday showed that the new look and marketing push for Bing are showing promising initial signs.
Rut-roh!
San Jose Mercury News columnist Chris O’Brien made a lot of humorous hay at the expense of Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz yesterday, in a joke piece called: “Bartz Unveils New &*%! Strategy for Yahoo.”
O’Brien cleverly created a fictional transcript of a Yahoo staff meeting where Bartz–by now, well-known for her salty language–lets loose in an address about just how sick she was of competitors getting all the good press: “So we’re re-branding the company around excessive use of profanity. Our new marketing slogan will be, ‘Yahoo, (expletive) yeah!’”
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
If BoomTown were to hazard a guess, I would assume Yahoo would, if it could–in the end–sell itself off to Microsoft.
It’s just my opinion, of course, but it would still be the best-case scenario for the company, over either a more limited commercial advertising and search partnership with the software giant or, of course, going it alone.
That’s because, in 2009, it is still hard to answer the simple question: What is Yahoo?
That’s the one that stumped former Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang onstage at our sixth D: All Things Digital conference last year and will be the key query that Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz will need to answer when she takes the stage Wednesday morning at D7.
Recently–in the echo chamber that is Silicon Valley–several people told BoomTown quite separately that former Yahoo President Sue Decker had become an executive-in-residence at the Blackstone Group.
Actually, when reached via email, Decker told me she has yet to decide her next step after leaving Yahoo and had simply set up a no-strings-attached desk at the private equity firm’s San Francisco office, but is definitely not an EIR there.
And who says bloggers don’t check?
In fact, a move to join Blackstone formally would have been very ironic for Decker given that the firm–specifically, longtime friend and former colleague, Jill Greenthal–was one of the advisers to Microsoft in its failed takeover battle for Yahoo.
Recently, BoomTown reported that talks between Microsoft and Yahoo had gotten “hot and heavy.”
That mood seems to be continuing, as many sources close to the situation on both sides said that the pair are coming ever closer to a search and advertising partnership deal.
“It’s meaningful,” said one source. “The fact that there is even progress and engagement, after so many failed attempts between us, says a lot.”
Indeed, there seems to be a lot of engagement between the two sides of late, and some sources think a deal could even be struck within the next few weeks.
Here’s an interesting irony–Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz will have her 99th day in office on the very one that the Internet giant will announce its first-quarter earnings: April 21, 2009 at 2 p.m. PST.
Technically, it will mean that she has been running Yahoo for 100 days, a time when most administrations get their first evaluation.
Thus, if it’s good enough for President Obama, it’s good enough for Bartz!
While most expect the results for the quarter to be weak, due to the econalypse, the overall verdict from BoomTown’s needling of Yahoos to give me info on their new leader recently: Love, love, love Bartz’s innate decisiveness, and wanting more of the same.
Former Google exec Tim Armstrong officially started his job as new AOL chairman and CEO today and sent out a hello-there memo to the troops.
According to Armstrong, he is poised to “bring back the magic of AOL.”
BoomTown loves magic tricks!
Armstrong is also promising to look closely at AOL over the next 100 days, which “will end in Dulles with an All-Hands meeting in mid-July.”
Kara Swisher started covering digital issues for The Wall Street Journal's San Francisco bureau in 1997 and also wrote the BoomTown column about the sector. With Walt Mossberg, she co-produces and co-hosts D: All Things Digital, a major high-tech and media conference.
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
D is unlike any other executive conference. Since its debut in 2003, D has brought to life the energy and excitement of the digital revolution in an unscripted, upfront and unparalleled way. Read more »
Don't miss a post! Sign up for our Daily Email and get AllThingsD.com delivered each day.
Get columns, blogs and video from D and All Things Digital on your iPhone. Download now »
