The New Nation - Internet Edition

Om Malik

Jerry Yang, after a tumultuous reign as the chief executive officer of Yahoo(s YHOO), the company he co-founded with David Filo, announced today that he is stepping down from the top slot. The news was first reported by Kara Swisher and later confirmed by Yahoo in a press release. He is going to make way for someone else, but will stay on the board of Yahoo and will be known as Chief Yahoo. More importantly what does Yahoo need to do in order for Jerry to hang on to the title of Chief Yahoo! Yang's decision to move on isn't a surprise - it was clear from his talk at a recent industry conference that he was tired and perhaps a little out of his depth. His choice to the head the company that was looking down a deep abyss a while back was an ineffectual one, and a total and absolute failure on the part of Yahoo's board of directors. In June 2008, I wrote about the systematic rot inside the company.

What hasn't been discussed is that the company isn't really facing up to the fact that its layers of management have resulted in a state of masterful inactivity, masked perhaps as a culture of consensus. This starts at the top - from the company's boardand senior management down to VP level where people are prone to organizing and attending twenty meetings before deciding the fate of a project. Some senior managers including the ones who are deserting the company are skillful players in this game of hiding ennui behind grandiose plans and a great future that never happens.