Day 73: The (Sleepy) Attack of the Yahoo Vice Presidents
Despite a lot of noisy speculation all around the Internet yesterday about big changes afoot, let me give you the skinny on exactly what is going to happen today at Yahoo when all its top brass gather at its Sunnyvale, Calif., headquarters for an all-day confab.
Context & Ripple Effects
The meeting lands against an uneasy backdrop: since [[a:1177398|Yahoo's long-delayed advertising system had the company crossing its fingers back in February]], the company has spent September stocking up on assets and people — a reported $350M purchase of Zimbra, the acquisition of BuzzTracker along with all of Participate Media's staff, and a newly hired VP and GM to run Yahoo News.
Now BoomTown reports that all of Yahoo's top brass are gathering today for an all-day confab at its Sunnyvale headquarters, with noisy internet speculation swirling about big changes involving its vice presidents — speculation the site frames as rumor rather than confirmed fact, promising readers 'the skinny' on what actually happens when the brass convene.
First-order effects
- Every senior Yahoo executive spends today in a closed-room session at headquarters while unconfirmed talk of VP-level shake-ups circulates publicly, putting leadership continuity itself on display as the open question.
Second-order effects
- With Hitwise's August figures showing search share still favoring Google and Yahoo, whatever product or organizational calls emerge from the room land directly on the Google rivalry — especially awkward given the confirmed study finding Yahoo's own search results outperforming Google's on quality and clicks.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds — a portal cycling through acquisitions, new hires and repeated all-hands strategy sessions while exec speculation recurs — Yahoo's structural problem becomes governance churn rather than product quality, forcing the board to treat reorganization as a standing agenda item.
The trend: Large web portals are entering a phase where strategy-by-all-day-confab replaces steady execution, with each leadership gathering read by markets and staff alike as a possible prelude to restructuring.