For a long time now, it has been Microsoft constantly raiding the Yahoo talent pool, as one top tech exec after another has left its Sunnyvale, Calif., HQ to join the Redmond, Wash.-based software giant.
Well, turnabout is fair play for Yahoo, as it nabs a top Microsoft ad exec.
Here’s a very funny video, called “Digital Media Musical Chairs,” from a Wall Street type who goes by the code name L. McDuff.
It’s about the many switcheroos in recent years among the execs at the big Web outfits like Google, Time Warner unit AOL, Yahoo and Microsoft .
And when you look at it from a “Hollywood Squares” point of view, it’s kind of is amazing to realize that there are only about a dozen Internet execs moving in and out of the various jobs.
More musical chairs at Yahoo, which BoomTown predicted recently, as top execs at the company move in and out of jobs, and new ones from the outside move in.
Perhaps the most important change to occur is the replacement this week of SVP Scott Dietzen–who had been in charge of all communications and communities products at Yahoo–by former Adobe Systems exec Bryan Lamkin, several sources said.
And there’s even more…
I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name/It felt good to be out of the rain/In the desert you can remember your name/’cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain.
Actually, for Yahoo, which is holding its big annual meeting of the company’s advertising sales staff in Indian Wells, Calif., maybe just a little pain since BoomTown is only a scant few miles away, as the crow flies, attending the Demo09 conference in Palm Desert.
The Yahoofest will include an appearance by its energetic new CEO, Carol Bartz.
Don’t worry, Yahoo PR, I will not crash the proceedings or be bribing the bartenders to get more leaks. But you Yahoos should still be careful with the wine in the hot tub anyway–as Carol says, loose lips sink ships!
“It’s being changed every minute,” joked one Yahoo source about the reorg now in process at Yahoo, which is being shepherded by new CEO Carol Bartz.
Actually, it’s kind of true, as execs at the troubled Web company are being moved around the board like chess pieces, while others players are added.
According to numerous sources, mostly in Yahoo’s Sunnyvale, Calif. HQ, things are still in flux and not completely settled as yet.
But one thing is clear: Layers are being collapsed quickly, as fewer people are in charge of more, with all roads leading to Bartz.
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.
How much does BoomTown love the Friday weekly memos that Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz sends out to the troops?
Very, very much since they are so full of significant news–a slowdown of Yahoo’s homepage redesign and a major limiting of the global rollout of its new advertising platform, APT, to name a few.
But they also have a weird but compelling kind of energy that nearly jumps off the page, giving clear insight into how Bartz thinks and operates.
Like the Energizer Bunny, I would say.
So, here are two memos Bartz sent out to Yahoo staff: one from today and one from last week on Feb. 13, both of which discuss just how busy she is keeping herself.
Yahoo–which has stuck to its guns by staying in the search business, even though many think it is a losing game and should be sold off to Microsoft–has lost a key engineer in that arena to–uh-oh–Microsoft.
Sean Suchter, the VP of Search Technology at Yahoo, was also deeply involved in Yahoo’s efforts to open up its search platform, initiatives the company has touted aggressively as a bright spot in its not-so-lustrous landscape.
Here’s my favorite quote from former Microsoft exec Jeff Dossett from a phone interview he gave to BoomTown this afternoon, after his appointment as Yahoo’s new U.S. Audience head:
“Where others see risk, I see opportunity,” said the man who has climbed Mount Everest twice. “We have this great Web asset … and, from here on out, it is all about execution.”
You can tell from the gumption in this ain’t-no-mountain-high-enough sentiment that Dossett just got to Yahoo and sees a challenge at the troubled Internet giant where others see, well, a long-running quagmire.
About a month ago, BoomTown reported that MSN executive producer and general manager Jeff Dossett was contemplating joining Yahoo.
Microsoft released a statement that day saying Dossett was indeed stepping down from his MSN duties, as I had posted, but noted that he was staying put at the software giant.
Oops, it looks like I was right in my report: “The Secret Microsoft Invasion of Yahoo Continues: MSN GM Headed There Soon?”
Dossett has accepted a job as SVP, U.S. Audience at Yahoo, Yahoo said this afternoon, while also confirming my previous report that Yahoo Media Group head Scott Moore was departing.
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.
To be fair, the whole market was dragged down today due to worries about a deepening recession. But Yahoo’s ever-decreasing share price has got to have the company and its investors mighty worried.
Hitting lows not seen since the dot-com doldrums of 2001 and 2002, Yahoo closed at $15.58, down $1.38 or 8.14 percent, giving the troubled Internet giant a market cap of just $22.08 billion.
Jeff Dossett, a longtime Microsoft exec and current executive producer and general manager of MSN, is leaving the company, sources said, and is likely to land at Yahoo soon.
A longtime and experienced mountain climber, Dossett has been one of the more senior digital execs at Microsoft.
It is an interesting digital-musical-chair trend, in fact. On Monday, another former Microsoft big shot, Joanne Bradford, will start her job as Yahoo’s top U.S. sales exec.
After the news broke that former Microsoft exec Joanne Bradford was headed to Yahoo as the head of its U.S. ad sales and more, I got to talk to both her and her new boss, Hilary Schneider, on the phone this morning about the move.
Bradford left her job as national ad sales chief at Spot Runner, where she arrived just six months ago, to take the position of SVP of U.S. revenue and market development at Yahoo.
In what is both a surprising and not-so-surprising move, Yahoo has replaced its top U.S. ad sales exec with one from Microsoft.
The departure of Dave Karnstedt, who took over last year when longtime Yahoo ad sales exec Wenda Millard left Yahoo in the first of many controversial partings, has been long rumored internally.
Karnstedt will join Redpoint Ventures and is being replaced by Joanne Bradford, a longtime and well-known Microsoft exec who decamped from the software giant to helm national ad sales at the trendy start-up Spot Runner just six months ago.
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 »
