Exclusive: PayPal’s VP of Product Sam Shrauger Resigns — Is He Headed for Yahoo? (Memo)

A PayPal spokesperson has confirmed to All Things D that Sam Shrauger, the VP of global product and experience, is leaving the company.

“After eight years at PayPal, Sam has decided to leave the company. We wish him all the best,” said Anuj Nayer, a company spokesperson.

Shrauger’s last day at the company will be as soon as tomorrow. In an interesting bit of timing, Yahoo’s new CEO — and Shrauger’s former boss at PayPal — is announcing a new restructuring of the Internet giant tomorrow. Sources said that could include Shrauger in a new senior role at Yahoo, given its former product head Blake Irving just resigned last week.

(Thompson already grabbed PayPal PR head Amanda Pires to head communications there — she starts next week.)

We’ve also learned through an internal memo, obtained by All Things D, that PayPal’s President David Marcus will serve as the interim VP of global product and experience (GP&E) while a search is conducted for a replacement.

Shrauger’s departure closely follows the appointment of Marcus, who filled the vacancy that was suddenly created when Scott Thompson left to become CEO of Yahoo. Marcus joined PayPal in August 2011 after it acquired Zong, a leading mobile payments provider, where he was founder and CEO.

The eBay-owned company has gone through a number of other employee departures, but as one of the better positioned companies to participate in the next wave of payments innovation, it is an easy target for companies as they try to beef up their knowledge in online payments.

The most notable departure was probably Osama Bedier, who left for Google. He now heads up Google Wallet, the company’s competing mobile payments initiative. More recently, American Express lured Neal Sample away from eBay to become SVP of technologies for its digital payments initiative, and 12-year veteran Alyssa Cutright left PayPal to head up international expansion at Square.

The departure of Shrauger, who helped help launch the company’s merchant services business when it expanded beyond eBay, will hurt PayPal in particular given his immense institutional knowledge in the space.

Here’s the entire internal memo:

Team,

Sam Shrauger has decided to leave PayPal. After eight incredible years with us, Sam says he feels like now is the right time to do something different. I know you join me in wishing Sam all the best. We’ll miss his passion, energy and commitment to PayPal and to creating innovative product experiences for our customers. I want to thank Sam for his leadership and many contributions. Sam joined PayPal in 2004 to help launch our merchant services business. He since has served in a variety of product and product strategy roles, including leading the Bill Me Later integration and launch of our digital goods initiatives. Most importantly, Sam leaves behind an extremely talented team. And I know they couldn’t be more fired up to deliver the next generation of groundbreaking PayPal products to delight our customers.

To ensure we don’t miss a beat, I will serve as interim GP&E leader. I’ll work in close partnership with the GP&E leadership team to ensure we’re on track to deliver our short and long term product and experience commitments. It will also give me a chance to take a fresh look at the opportunities ahead of us and the kind of product and experience leader we need. We will do a comprehensive search internally first, followed by an external search to find the right leader.

One thing won’t change. As we work through this transition, we will remain maniacally focused on delighting customers with amazing product designs and experiences. We’ve got some incredible momentum out there with recent product launches such as PayPal Payments, PayPal Here and our expansion into point of sale retail. We will continue to build on that momentum and elevate how we create world-class, disruptive and innovative product experiences.

I know the GP&E team can count on your full support. And as always, let me or the leadership team know if you have any questions.

We have enormous opportunity ahead of us. And we have a clear, bold vision and a strong strategy. Together, we are changing the world and creating the future of money. Let’s keep the momentum going.

Sincerely,

David Marcus

President, PayPal

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