Longtime Yahoo exec Raymond Stern (pictured here) — who seems to have fit into a lot of management reorgs in his short time at the Silicon Valley Internet giant — has been named to a new role at the company as SVP of strategy, corporate development and new ventures.

He’ll be reporting to CEO Scott Thompson, according to an internal memo I got sent by the people who send me internal memos from Yahoo. (A group, I might add, that is getting bigger by the day.)

When he got to Yahoo in late 2009, Stern had first been named SVP of North America partnerships and business development for Yahoo. He later had to also pinch-hit as its head of U.S. audience, mobile and local, after an exec left, before being named SVP of North America audience. Then, after another exec took over the audience job, he was back to business development and partnerships and also added the listings business to his portfolio. Then, Stern got mobile biz dev back, after another exec left.

Now, the man who has been the Swiss Army Knife of Yahoo will be the key strategy guy for Thompson, who clearly wants to do a lot of strategizing.

Interesting note: Stern was a former consultant to Boston Consulting Group, which is Thompson’s go-to outside team on his ongoing restructuring of the company. He is also a former Intuit exec.

As per usual, here is the internal memo on Stern’s appointment from Thompson, who is dealing with some other very thorny issues right now too:

Yahoos –

Over the last few months, you’ve heard me talk a lot about focusing our company around our core business. As part of this, we need to find new ways to strengthen, leverage, and monetize our core assets — all in conjunction with our long-term strategy focused on driving growth. To help tackle this challenge, I’m excited to announce that Raymond Stern will take on a new role at Yahoo! as senior vice president of strategy, corporate development, and new ventures, reporting to me.

For those of you who haven’t had the chance to meet Raymond over the last two and half years here at Yahoo!, he previously oversaw distribution partnerships and business development, as well as our Latin American, Canadian, and small business teams. Earlier in his career, he spent 10 years at the Boston Consulting Group, and later had various roles at Intuit including leading strategy and corporate development during a transformational period in the late 90s through the mid 2000s.

In his new role, Raymond will work across the teams to ensure alignment and that we are taking advantage of opportunities around the globe. He will lead three critical areas for us:

Strategy: Raymond will lead corporate strategy, working in close partnership with the senior leadership team and me.

Corporate Development: Raymond will work with the team to find opportunities to accelerate our progress and growth through acquisitions, investments and strategic partnerships. In conjunction with this, Marcus Shen and his group will be renamed corporate M&A, and will continue to be the transactional execution arm supporting Yahoo!’s corporate development initiatives.

New Ventures: Raymond will look at emerging areas outside of what’s happening in the halls of Yahoo! and bring new innovative and disruptive ideas to the forefront.

In the coming weeks, you’ll hear more from Raymond as he works with the leadership team to align our corporate priorities and long-term strategy.

Please join me in welcoming Raymond to this important new role.

/signed
/Scott Thompson

And here’s to your new job, Raymond:

Earlier today, Yahoo’s persistent thorn, activist shareholder Dan Loeb of Third Point poison-penned another letter to the board of the Silicon Valley Internet company, demanding that Yahoo fire its new CEO Scott Thompson, as well as director Patti Hart, over bizarre inaccuracies related to their academic achievements.

“Permitting Mr. Thompson and Ms. Hart to stay with the Company after apparently violating the Code of Ethics sends a message to all Yahoo! employees that a different set of rules applies at the top,” Loeb wrote.”[Yahoo must] terminate Mr. Thompson for cause immediately given his demonstrable unsuitability to remain Chief Executive Officer and a director of Yahoo! and accept the resignation of Ms. Hart for similar reasons.”

And while many across the blogosphere — including some very clever tweets — called for his head tout de suite, that’s just not going to happen.

At least for now, at this early point in a controversy over Yahoo filing legal documents that misrepresented Thompson’s long-ago degree from Stonehill College.

In a nutshell: Thompson does not have a computer science degree, as he had maintained he did in public bios for almost a decade, a falsehood that mysteriously seeped into documents Yahoo filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

That’s bad news for Yahoo, for sure, on many levels, but moving against Thompson at this moment is not likely to be the answer — for the short term, at least.

That’s due to many reasons, that I like to think of it as three hopelessly complex puzzles that need solving pronto.

The What-Did-Yahoo-Know-and-When-Did-It-Know-It Question

There is no question the first thing Yahoo’s board needs to do is a thorough investigation to determine how a borked bio could proliferate so widely and for so long.

Most importantly, Yahoo will have to reveal if Thompson actually gave them this incorrect information, as he aggressively lobbied for the then-open CEO job.

As I had previously reported several times, Thompson cold-emailed a Yahoo director — Intuit CEO Brad Smith, as it turns out — despite not being on the list of potential candidates. Thompson was then shuttled over to Hart, who was running the vetting process with the help of headhunting firm Heidrick & Struggles, and hired within weeks.

Oddly, sources said Thompson never filled out the required informational papers for the job, nor did Heidrick conduct the normal background check on him. Instead, another forensic firm Yahoo hired did the work.

If it turns out Thompson gave any of them the bad bio info, it would be quick curtains for him.

But if Yahoo’s board members obtained his info on their own, the next key query would be how no one at Yahoo — especially its legal and compliance staffers, as well as outside help — managed to catch the problem during the vetting of Thompson.

Here are some good questions to start with:

Who put a faux computer science degree on Thompson’s bio in the first place, why and when did it happen?

Where did Yahoo get the inaccurate information?

Who was in charge of checking Thompson’s academic record for Yahoo?

And, who checked the work of the checkers?

The problem is made more complicated, because correct information was easily available in the SEC filings of eBay for years, since Thompson was head of its PayPal payments unit.

While the resume information was indeed wrong on eBay’s Web site and on numerous bios of Thompson for years, how did eBay legally get it right while Yahoo did not?

That calls into question the expertise of the company, its directors and those they hired to make sure execs were completely on the up and up, a task they clearly failed at.

If rank incompetence is the reason, which it looks like it might be, expect certain board members and other Yahoo staffers to go, along with anyone who helped in the Thompson vetting, or lack thereof.

Unless, of course, the gang-that-couldn’t-shoot-straight actually did shoot straight and some one at Yahoo found out about the educational discrepancy before the new CEO was announced, but declined to fix it.

While sinister, such a scenario is not entirely implausible, given how much pressure Yahoo was under at the time to hire a CEO quickly, due to Loeb and his looming proxy fight.

If any evidence were to surface that this was so, it is curtains all around, which would rain the kind of disaster down on Yahoo’s Sunnyvale HQ that would make Loeb’s attacks look like a Nerf battle. Instead, it would be “The Hunger Games” — except that no one survives.

The Chaos-in-Sunnyvale Conundrum

Which brings us to the profound implications of Yahoo jacking its second CEO within six months.

While it’s easy to yell “Fire the CEO” on a crowded Twitter, it’s simply not so easy in practice.

How long did it take Yahoo’s lugubrious board to figure out Carol Bartz needed to go? A … long … time. (And, she had a CS degree!)

More to the point, Thompson — and his not-so-merry band of consultants from Boston Consulting Group and, this week, McKinsey & Company — has only just completed a massive layoff of 2,000 employees and a jarring restructuring of management.

He’s also in the early stages of rolling out a new and decidedly still-squishy strategic plan to top execs (also just this week), along with working on some other key initiatives.

That includes renegotiating its search partnership with Microsoft; noodling around on a possible deal with Google; contemplating the sale of a variety of assets; and — oh, yes — trying to take on social networking Godzilla Facebook over patent infringement.

Busy much?

But, most importantly, Thompson is now the umpteenth Yahoo CEO to be working on the never-ending talks with its Asian partners over selling back a piece of the company’s lucrative stake to them.

While Yahoo CFO Tim Morse and head lawyer Mike Callahan are the point men on the deal, the lack of CEO would be an issue in the now-proceeding again talks.

This is a sale that must — and I underscore must — get done and soon, giving Yahoo much-needed breathing room and a whole lot of cash to fork over to increasingly disgruntled shareholders.

So, expect Yahoo to try to milk that deal for all it’s worth in the coming week, in order to give the appearance, at least, of positive forward momentum.

And, like it or not, Thompson has to play a key role in it getting done.

Thus, the likelihood of wait-and-see over point-and-shoot on Thompson is higher than you might think.

That’s especially true given four members of the board are leaving within six weeks and have either or are in the process of being replaced by new members.

Then, Thompson will be their problem to solve.

Again, no small thing, since the old crew — led by feckless Chairman Roy Bostock — is not likely to want to end its appalling tenure with yet another disaster.

Such a move would further tarnish the legacy of its outgoing directors, although I am not sure how it could be any more sullied, given their consistent record of one bad decision after the next.

What do I really think? I think this cursed board will maintain its 100 percent score of doing the wrong thing at the right time.

It could be a different case with the new directors, of course, who all seem pretty sharp and not as easily impressed by a record of failure.

They will surely be monitoring Thompson carefully, as will employees, who have taken to internal message boards with a rage not seen in a while over the resume debacle.

Their morale might be one uncertainty impacting Thompson’s fate. If a lot of key employees continue to bolt Yahoo or those remaining more loudly express their disdain for the bio antics, the new directors might listen.

The Whatever-Loeb-Says-We-Won’t-Do-Till-Later Head-Scratcher

Which brings us back to Loeb, whose noisy campaign to grab seats on the Yahoo board has certainly hit home this week.

And, though Yahoo likes to ding him a lot, since he started his campaign of terribly entertaining investor terror, a lot of what he’s been calling for has happened.

That includes a major flushing of the board — with five longtime members, including co-founder Jerry Yang, going, going and gone.

In addition, Loeb brought pressure to slow down some questionable deals, from Yahoo’s PIPE dream to a tax-free spinoff in Asia in a deal only an accountant could love.

He’s also — though they try to deny it — got the Yahoo directors in the dangerous habit of reacting to him, rather than playing their own game.

While the Yahoo board has resisted any deal with Loeb (pictured here), blaming him for rejecting their kind offers of settlement, it is he who is setting the tone more than Yahoo.

And that tone is of alarm and trouble and chaos at Yahoo.

That’s not going to work to convince other Yahoo investors to back his cause — in fact, Loeb has a decidedly uphill battle to win his proxy challenge — he has still scored a direct win with the bio relevations.

So far, though, Loeb has not sunk Yahoo’s battleship, so it is unlikely the board will acquiesce to his latest demand of Thompson being fired by noon on Monday.

Maybe it will eventually, or maybe it will just scold Thompson or maybe it will do nothing at all.

All that is an unknown — a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, with a lot of managerial incompetence thrown in. And that, most of all, is the sad definition of today’s Yahoo.

RELATED POSTS:

• Yahoo’s Parting With Thompson Will Be for “Cause” (a.k.a. CSLie)
• Ross Levinsohn’s Yahoo Plan: Back to the Future
• Here’s New Yahoo CEO’s First Note to Troops! (The Leaking-Internal-Memos-to-ATD Policy Remains in Effect As Usual)
• Yahoo Officially Confirms ATD Report on CEO Changes and Proxy Settlement
• Meet the Man I Call “The Hair”: The Video Stylings of Yahoo’s Newest CEO Ross Levinsohn
• Will Thompson’s Ouster Mean a Yahoo-Facebook Patent Settlement Too?
• Exclusive: Yahoo’s Thompson Out; Levinsohn In; Board Settlement With Loeb Nears Completion
• Heidrick & Struggles Slaps Back at Thompson’s Yahoo in Blame Game Over ResuMess
• Is He In or Is He Out? Crunchtime for Scott Thompson at Yahoo.
• Not So Scott Free? Yahoo’s Other Big Shareholder — Cap Re — Leaning Toward Supporting Loeb Over Thompson ResuMess.
• Tech Nation’s Gunn Says She and Yahoo CEO Discussed Their CS Degrees Before 2009 Show (Video and Audio)
• Loeb Calls Again for Thompson Firing From Yahoo, as Former eBay Boss Supports Him
• Place Your Bets: Will Loeb Drop Another Bomb on Yahoo at Vegas Confab Later Today?
• Exclusive: Yahoo Director in Charge of Botched CEO Vetting to Step Down From Board
• CEO Says Sorry to Yahoos for Borked Bio “Distraction” — But Will Mea Culpa Work Without an Apology for Error? (Memo)
• Buffett Comments on Trust Issue in Yahoo CEO BioGate: “You’ve Got a Problem”
• Loeb Lobs Lawsuit, as Expected, at Yahoo’s Borked Bio Mess
• As Yahoo CEO Reaches Out to Top Staff, Board Meets to Weigh “Options” (I.E., Deciding Who Gets to Take the Borked Bio Blame)
• Yahoo Should Expect Incoming Lawsuit Lobbed by Loeb Tomorrow on CEO Hiring
• They Shoot Yahoo CEOs, Don’t They? But Not Without a Really Smoking Gun and a Much Stronger Board.
• Yahoo’s Thompson Asks Employees to “Stay Focused” — Except Not on Him
• In 2009 Interview, Yahoo CEO Does Not Deny He Has a CS Degree, and Calls Himself an “Engineer” (Audio)
• Yahoo’s Board Will “Review” Resume Discrepancy of CEO
• How Did a Phantom CS Degree Get on CEO’s Bio in SEC Filings? Yahoo’s Not Saying.
• Yahoo’s Response on CEO’s Computer Science ResumeGate: “Inadvertent Error”
• Dan Loeb Alleges “Discrepancies” on Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson’s Resume Related to Computer Science Degree

In a move that AllThingsD had previously reported was coming, Yahoo said it had laid off 2,000 employees, or 14 percent of the workforce.

“Today’s actions are an important next step toward a bold, new Yahoo! — smaller, nimbler, more profitable and better equipped to innovate as fast as our customers and our industry require,” said Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson in a statement. “Unfortunately, reaching that goal requires the tough decision to eliminate positions.”

While Yahoo has had periodic layoffs over the years, this one is its most significant in its history, and will also result in another large-scale restructuring of the management organization. More cuts are also likely to follow in the months ahead, due to the reshaping of Yahoo.

The latest employee action is being pushed by Thompson, who joined the Silicon Valley Internet giant in January from eBay’s PayPal unit.

“Change is never easy,” he wrote in an internal email to Yahoo employees (it is below in its entirety), in a well-worn cliché I am dead certain few appreciated hearing today from the top leader.

At an internal meeting with top staff last night, Thompson — who has gotten what seems to be a well-deserved reputation for chewing folks out at Yahoo — was more direct with the execs gathered, berating them extensively for not delivering and getting the company to this sorry point.

Ouch, Scott! It’s Easter, so it might be time for some forgiveness. (And no more ranting about my reporting to those inside Yahoo, since I have been 100 percent accurate so far. FYI, will aim for 110 percent next week!)

Yahoo said it will save about $375 million with the cuts, incurring a $125 to $145 million pretax cash charge for employee severance in its second quarter. Before the cuts, Yahoo had 14,000 staffers and has many thousands more hired as contractors.

The layoffs touch all units of the company, but the hardest hit is the product division, which is headed by Blake Irving, as well as its marketing, research and international units. Yahoo gave no details on the layoffs other than the number.

But the fate of two key parts of the soon-to-be-blown-apart unit — Yahoo’s advertising technology businesses, Right Media and APT, and its search business — is still being contemplated, as I have previously reported. Possible scenarios include a sale or a joint venture transaction for both, which employ thousands of Yahoo staffers.

The layoffs tomorrow are not the end of the road in cutting costs. Along with the likely shedding of its ad tech and search businesses, Yahoo leadership is also looking at future cuts as it evaluates current businesses, which could lop even more employees off its roster.

That said, Yahoo will be doubling down in some older and new arenas, so there would also be simultaneous hiring in the months ahead.

As wrenching as they will be today at Yahoo, the layoffs come as no surprise. Thompson had told employees in memos and also in recent meetings that “real change” was coming to the company.

Along with the trauma of the layoffs, Yahoo is also facing two other tense face-offs externally. In one, activist shareholder Third Point is waging a proxy fight for board seats and stepped up the public pressure this week; and Facebook struck back hard at Yahoo’s patent lawsuit with a counterclaim of its own.

After the layoffs tomorrow, sources say Yahoo will be announcing a new organization by next week. Thompson, along with outside consultants he has hired from the Boston Consulting Group, are making what appear to be profound changes.

Sources said that Yahoo will most likely be comprised of a global media division, one that encompasses Yahoo’s consumer products businesses and one focused on global and regional sales. There could also be a small organization of about 50 employees aimed at future innovation.

Americas head Ross Levinsohn is pegged to run the media arm, which will also include its leads/commerce businesses, such as autos; Shashi Seth — who now heads search and marketplaces — is likely to run consumer products, which will include Yahoo’s communications and search businesses.

Yahoo has already been conducting a search for a new worldwide sales head, who will also be boss of the U.S., Asia and Europe, Middle East and Africa sales regions. Rich Riley, who was recently running EMEA, is reportedly the pick for U.S. sales; Rose Tsou, who is running Asia, would presumably stay put; Yahoo is looking for an EMEA sales lead.

Some current operational execs — such as service engineering and ops head David Dibble, CFO Tim Morse, and top lawyer Mike Callahan — are likely to continue to operate as before.

One big question mark is how Chief Product Officer Irving fits in the possible new org, in which the new units get control of their product development. Irving has reportedly had several incoming job offers, although it is not clear if he has responded to that interest.

But today, the focus is on the layoffs and letting go all those employees, many of whom have worked at Yahoo for years. Even if it will result in a stronger Yahoo, as Thompson promises, it is still a very sad day in Sunnyvale.

Here is a video on the topic that I did with the WSJ.com “Digits” show today, after the cuts were announced early this morning:

Here’s the entire terse statement from Yahoo:

Yahoo! Statement

SUNNYVALE, Calif. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — Yahoo! today confirmed that it is taking important next steps to reshape the company for the future.

“Today’s actions are an important next step toward a bold, new Yahoo! — smaller, nimbler, more profitable and better equipped to innovate as fast as our customers and our industry require. We are intensifying our efforts on our core businesses and redeploying resources to our most urgent priorities. Our goal is to get back to our core purpose — putting our users and advertisers first — and we are moving aggressively to achieve that goal,” said Scott Thompson, CEO of Yahoo!. “Unfortunately, reaching that goal requires the tough decision to eliminate positions. We deeply value our people and all they’ve contributed to Yahoo!.”

Yahoo! has a solid foundation — nearly 700 million users and thousands of advertisers that engage with Yahoo! properties regularly and trust the company with their data and their business. Through its restructuring efforts, Yahoo! intends to grow by responding more quickly to customer needs and competing more effectively in areas where it can win. Yahoo! has identified key parts of the business — a select group of core businesses, the platforms that support those core businesses, and the data that drives deep personalization for users and ROI for advertisers — where the company will intensify efforts and redeploy resources globally, all focused on increasing shareholder value. With a clear focus on profitability and growth, the company will be disciplined in its investments and radically simplify how it builds, launches and maintains many of its properties and products.

Today, the company will begin the process of informing employees about these changes. As part of that effort, approximately 2,000 people will be notified of job elimination or phased transition.

Yahoo! expects to realize approximately $375 million of annualized savings upon completion of all employee transitions. The company currently expects to recognize the majority of an estimated $125 to $145 million pretax cash charge relating to employee severance in its second quarter financial results. The company may incur additional charges in connection with this action. More information will be provided about Yahoo!’s future direction in conjunction with the release of its first quarter financial results on April 17, 2012.

And here is Thompson’s memo to employees, stating the obvious and with nothing new from previous statements and internal memos:

Yahoos –-

Today we are restructuring Yahoo! to give ourselves the opportunity to compete and win in our core business. The changes we’re announcing today will put our customers first, allow us to move fast, and to get stuff done. The outcome of these changes will be a smaller, nimbler, more profitable Yahoo! better equipped to innovate as fast as our customers and our industry require.

Over the last 60 days, we’ve fundamentally re-thought every part of our business and we will continue to actively consider all options that allow Yahoo! to put maximum effort where we can succeed. As part of this process, I believe we have to focus to win in a select group of core businesses globally:

Core Media and Communications: Our content, media, and communications experiences must be best in class. That includes getting today’s core properties right and innovating on a next generation of great product experiences across all screens.∙

Platforms: We must make our core platforms and systems a genuine strength for Yahoo! — platforms that we can really leverage to support our massive scale, drive the deepest personalization, and boost speed to market.∙

Data: Our massive data sets must become a genuine competitive advantage for Yahoo!. We have to unlock the value in our data to allow us to really understand our 700 million users, encourage and win their engagement and trust, leverage everything they do with us to more fully personalize their experiences, and to give our advertisers the immediate insights they are rightfully demanding.

We are intensifying our efforts on our core businesses and redeploying resources to our most urgent priorities. Our goal is to get back to our core purpose — putting our users and advertisers first -– and we are moving aggressively to achieve that goal.

Unfortunately, reaching that goal requires the tough decision to eliminate jobs, which means losing colleagues and parting with friends. Today, we will begin the process of informing employees about these changes. As part of that effort, approximately 2,000 people will be notified of job elimination or a phased transition. We value our people and for those who will be leaving, we thank you for all you have contributed to Yahoo!. We will treat all of our people with dignity and respect, providing resources to help manage through their transition.

Change is never easy. But the time has come to move Yahoo! forward aggressively with increased focus and accountability. Our values have always been about treating all Yahoos with dignity and respect, and today is a day to embrace those values. This is an amazing company with exceptionally talented people and I know we will all do our best to encourage each other through this difficult period of transition.

Scott

According to sources close to the situation, Yahoo’s massive round of layoffs — which is likely to impact up to 2,000 employees — is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg that will hit the storied Silicon Valley Internet giant in the months to come.

Sources said Yahoo is currently planning to announce the cuts in staff in the early morning, just as the markets open. That could change, of course, but the cuts will definitely occur within the next two days.

The layoffs, which will touch all units of the company, are expected to hit hardest in the product division, which is headed by Blake Irving.

But the fate of two key parts of the soon-to-be-blown-apart unit — Yahoo’s advertising technology businesses, Right Media and APT, and its search business — is still being contemplated, as I have previously reported. Possible scenarios include a sale or a joint venture transaction for both, which employ thousands of Yahoo staffers.

Also set to be hard hit are Yahoo’s local businesses, as well as its marketing and research divisions. While still sustaining losses, its media units will not be as badly impacted. And it’s not clear how many employee terminations will be aimed at the company’s general and administrative staff.

The layoffs tomorrow are not the end of the road in cutting costs. Along with the likely shedding of its ad tech and search businesses, Yahoo leadership is also looking at future cuts as it evaluates current businesses, which could lop even more employees off its roster.

That said, Yahoo will be “doubling down” in some older and new arenas, so there would also be simultaneous hiring in the months ahead.

But not tomorrow, which will be one of the tougher days in Yahoo’s long history of periodic layoffs. Newly installed CEO Scott Thompson had told employees in memos and also in recent meetings that “real change” was coming to the company.

That is indeed the case, which is causing massive strain throughout the company, which now employs over 14,000 and has many thousands more hired as contractors.

Along with the trauma of the layoffs, Yahoo is also facing two other tense face-offs externally. In one, activist shareholder Third Point is waging a proxy fight for board seats and stepped up the public pressure this week; and Facebook struck back hard at Yahoo’s patent lawsuit with a counter-claim of its own.

After the layoffs tomorrow, sources say Yahoo will be announcing a new organization by next week, which will create several major, soup-to-nuts units at the company. Thompson, along with consultants he has hired from the Boston Consulting Group, are making what appear to be profound changes.

Sources said Yahoo will most likely be comprised of a global media division, one that encompasses Yahoo’s consumer products businesses and one focused on global and regional sales. There could also be a small organization of about 50 employees aimed at future innovation.

Americas head Ross Levinsohn is pegged to run the media arm, which will also include its leads/commerce businesses, such as autos; Shashi Seth — who now heads search and marketplaces — is likely to run consumer products, which will include Yahoo’s communications and search businesses.

Yahoo has already been conducting a search for a new worldwide sales head, who will also be boss of the U.S., Asia and Europe, Middle East and Africa sales regions. Rich Riley, who was recently running EMEA, is reportedly the pick for U.S. sales; Rose Tsou, who is running Asia, would presumably stay put; Yahoo is looking for an EMEA sales lead.

Some current operational execs — such as service engineering and ops head David Dibble, CFO Tim Morse, and top lawyer Mike Callahan — are likely to continue to operate as before.

One big question mark is how Chief Product Officer Irving fits in the possible new org, in which the new units get control of their product development. Irving has reportedly had several incoming job offers, although it is not clear if he has responded to that interest.

Let’s hope that Yahoos who will be let go tomorrow find themselves with many new employment choices after the ax falls.

Yahoo is preparing to begin layoffs of what could be thousands of employees starting next week, according to multiple sources, and is then expected to announce a new restructuring of the company the week after.

The swirl at the Silicon Valley Internet giant has grown more intense this week, as new CEO Scott Thompson has brought in top management for a series of meetings both Tuesday and Wednesday to outline the plans.

What has emerged — although sources noted that Thompson and others communicating the pending changes said nothing was yet set in stone — is the picture of a drastically slimmed-down organization with a focus on media, advertising and new but unclear “future” initiatives.

First the layoffs: Sources said the cuts will be deep and mostly aimed at the product, research and marketing units of Yahoo, which are likely to take place Wednesday. The ultimate goal, said multiple sources, is to cut many thousands from Yahoo’s staff of close to 14,000 employees, which is actually much larger, due to contract workers not officially in its roster.

The entire cut will not take place at once, said sources, since Thompson and others are still trying to figure out how to dispense with its ad technology org and, potentially, its search business. He has been in discussions with both Microsoft and Google about this, although there are other possibilities, too.

Both these parts of Yahoo together have about 2,500 staffers, whose fate is not yet sorted out.

Also still baking is the new structure, although sources said it is most likely to be comprised of a global media division, one that encompasses Yahoo’s communications and search businesses, and ones focused on global and also regional sales. There could also be a small organization of about 50 aimed at future innovation.

Americas head Ross Levinsohn is the likeliest exec to run the media arm, while Shashi Seth — who now heads search and marketplaces — would be the obvious candidate for the the communications/search one.

Thompson has already been conducting a search for a new worldwide sales head, although one possible internal exec for the job could be Rich Riley, who was recently running Yahoo’s Europe, Africa and Middle East region.

It is not clear how Chief Product Officer Blake Irving fits in the possible new org, since much of the development could now move to the decentralized units.

Some current operational execs — such as service engineering and ops head David Dibble, CFO Tim Morse, and top lawyer Mike Callahan — are likely to continue to operate as before.

Thompson, along with consultants he has hired from the Boston Consulting Group, presented the possible plan in front of Yahoo’s senior execs on Tuesday. That was followed by more meetings with a wider range of top management yesterday, although Thompson was not as highly specific in these meetings.

In fact, according to a half-dozen sources, Thompson apparently grew somewhat testy in one of the gatherings, when asked if there was a strategy he was going to announce in more detail to the group.

(Dear Scott, these are very talented employees who love the company and who have been through the wringer and it’s not their fault that leadership has failed them, so it might be a good idea to treat them with as much respect as possible right now.)

More to come, obviously.

Taylor Barada (pictured here), Yahoo’s recently appointed head of M&A, is joining Zynga in an unspecified role.

Barada replaced Andrew Siegel, who left Yahoo in December to join Condé Nast.

Yahoo staff was told of the move yesterday.

According to his bio at the Silicon Valley Internet giant:

“Taylor works with the Americas and Global Product orgs at Yahoo! leading strategic analysis/execution of acquisitions, divestitures, investments and other strategic relationships. Recent transactions include the sale of Zimbra to VMware and the acquisition of Citizen Sports. Prior to Yahoo! he worked as an investor, consultant, and operator at Rosewood Capital, Bain & Company, and Peregrine Systems. Taylor started his career as a professional soccer player and was a three time National Champion at the University of Virginia while completing his B.A. in History and Foreign Affairs.”

Barada’s departure to the San Francisco online gaming phenom–which was apparently able to extend him a more lucrative offer–will will put a crimp in Yahoo’s already slow-moving merger and acquisition strategies.

Yahoo declined to comment and I have emailed Zynga and have not yet heard back.

While the news has been be out there for a month, Miramax officially confirmed this morning that former News Corp. exec Mike Lang was named CEO of the Hollywood movie company.

What will be interesting about that for digital content players will be to see exactly what the man who was deeply involved in deals to buy the Myspace social networking site and also create the Hulu premium video service will do with Miramax’s rich trove of more than 700 award-winning films, including “Shakespeare in Love” and “Pulp Fiction,” in its movie library.

Lang left his post as EVP of business development and strategy at Fox Entertainment, including its film studio, broadcast network, sports and cable channel, earlier this year.

BoomTown spoke to him last night about his new job, which came after he advised the group that finally won Miramax–Filmyard Holdings.

“We are trying to take this company to the next level by exploring not only our traditional options, but our digital ones,” he said.

Miramax will not be aggressive in making new movies, but in taking advantage of the sequel rights it has to a number of hits, as well as the existing movies, which include four of the last 15 Best Picture Oscar winners.

“Our strategy is still emerging, but we want to exploit our assets in a variety of ways,” said Lang, who noted that could include everything from subscription deals with online video services, such as Netflix and Amazon, to digital content lockers in the cloud.

“We want people to be able to access our content across multiple medias,” he said. “We’ll take any payment, of course, but we also have to be smart about how we do these things.”

Lang, who has always had a foot in both worlds, said he thinks that digital media could develop similarly to the way traditional media has.

“There is no reason to think that digital will not emulate older media, with different windows in which subscribers watch content,” he said.

But, said Lang, he also thinks there is still life in physical media, such as Blu-ray players.

Since the deal just closed with former Miramax owner Disney, there are no employees yet for the Santa Monica, Calif.-based company.

But once he staffs up, Langs said he hopes to present a different picture of Hollywood to the digerati than the more typical wary hostility.

“Our goal really is we want to send a signal that we are a different company,” said Lang. “Not only about digital, but in being an innovative company.”

Here is the official press release about Lang:

MICHAEL LANG NAMED MIRAMAX CEO

SANTA MONICA, CA–December 8, 2010–Miramax today announced that Michael Lang has been appointed chief executive officer, effective immediately. Lang will be based at the new Miramax headquarters in Santa Monica and will oversee the renowned Miramax film library, which was acquired by Filmyard Holdings on December 3, 2010.

“I have known and worked closely with Mike for almost 20 years and have always respected his talents,” said Richard Nanula, chairman of Miramax and a principal at Colony Capital. “We are confident that he is the right person to lead Miramax in its next phase of growth.”

“I have always admired the Miramax library, which includes many respected titles and award-winning films,” said Lang. “Based on the quality of these assets, I believe bringing new life to this library–by working with traditional and new partners–will be an exciting and unprecedented story of growth and innovation. I am honored by this opportunity, and I look forward to working with my partners as we build a new kind of media company.”

Lang, 45, most recently served as a consultant to Filmyard in its acquisition of Miramax. Prior to that, he was EVP, Business Development and Strategy at Fox Entertainment, responsible for strategic initiatives across News Corp.’s entertainment assets, including Fox’s film studio, broadcast network, sports and cable channels. Lang played key roles in the acquisition of MySpace and the formation of the MySpace Music joint venture, and he led the creation of Hulu, with major broadcast partners. In addition, Lang was involved in Fox’s mobile, digital and video game initiatives. He joined Fox in 2004.

Prior to Fox, Lang served as a consultant on media-related investments. In the late ’90s, he was a founding executive of Z.com. Lang began his career at The Walt Disney Company in Strategic Planning. Lang earned his MBA with high distinction at Harvard Business School and he holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Claremont McKenna College.

(Full disclosure: News Corp. owns Dow Jones, which owns this site.)

Even for a story in which everyone involved insists there was no funny business going on, that’s a perfectly natural reaction and I get the prurient interest.

Thus, the resignation of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) head Mark Hurd and the private settlement of sexual harassment claims with consultant Jodie Fisher have morphed into a juicy summer potboiler, complete with claims and counterclaims, and even a cheesy demo reel (see below).

And also the odd appearance of Gloria Allred, lawyer to seemingly every celebrity mistress in California. Fisher said in a statement (also see below) she was no such thing, and was “saddened” by Hurd’s ouster.

Seems like crocodile tears to me, but today, when the markets open, we’ll see if any of it matters to investors or if they have moved on to trying to determine the next moves for the tech giant and its leadership.

Let’s hope Wall Street is less interested in gory details and more in business performance.

Still, already, the judgment on the Hurd debacle has hurt HP shareholders badly, shaving 9.7 percent off its shares, which closed down $4.50 at $41.85.

Encouragingly, the stock was up 1.8 percent in after-hours trading. But continued swirl around the company–especially about the large exit compensation package Hurd grabbed on his way out–could keep the stock in the doldrums for a while.

That’s too bad, since HP just put itself in the limelight with the acquisition of Palm and indications that it fully intended to compete in the fast-moving smartphone and tablet market with the webOS software platform.

Now, instead of turning up the public effort this year on making its consumer offerings more like Apple (AAPL) and Google (GOOG), the company is likely to be occupied answering questions that are not exactly on point.

As in: Who knew what and when and how was it expensed?

That means a very important message that HP needs to be getting out in the months ahead is not likely to break through for a while.

And that is why it is critical that HP’s board–which seems to have acted unusually swiftly and decisively with regard to Hurd’s missteps–move even faster to install a credible CEO at HP, especially one who can get everyone off the current meme and back onto the challenges facing the business.

In fact, much as Hurd did when he replaced Carly Fiorina in 2005 and quickly began to clean up her obvious mess. Except for a few bumps, the stock rebounded in his tenure, which was marked by stability and, well, dullness.

No longer.

In a statement Hurd made as he stepped down late last week, he said:

“I realized there were instances in which I did not live up to the standards and principles of trust, respect and integrity that I have espoused at HP.”

Apparently not. Now shareholders are about to find out the price of his failure.

Until then, here’s Fisher’s demo reel video and statement, as well as the classic “Nudge, Nudge” skit from Monty Python:

Jodie Fisher statement on ex-Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd –

“We understand you may not want everyone in the world to have the information you share on Facebook; that is why we give you control of your information. Our default privacy settings limit the information displayed in your profile to your school, your specified local area, and other reasonable community limitations that we tell you about.”

–Facebook Privacy Policy, 2006

“When you connect with an application or website it will have access to General Information about you. The term General Information includes your and your friends’ names, profile pictures, gender, user IDs, connections, and any content shared using the Everyone privacy setting….The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to “everyone.”…Because it takes two to connect, your privacy settings only control who can see the connection on your profile page. If you are uncomfortable with the connection being publicly available, you should consider removing (or not making) the connection.”

– Facebook Privacy Policy, 2010

Perfect.

Facebook has enlisted a former senior Bush administration regulator to defend its privacy practices in Washington. Tim Muris, an attorney at law firm O’Melveny & Myers who served as chairman of the Federal Trade Commission from 2001 to 2004, is advising the company, whose privacy disclosures and fast and loose handling of user data are increasingly drawing scrutiny on Capitol Hill.

Indeed, on May 5, the Electronic Privacy Information Center filed a complaint with the FTC alleging that Facebook has engaged in unfair and deceptive trade practices in violation of consumer protection law.

“[The site] continues to manipulate the privacy settings of users and its own privacy policy so that it can take personal information provided by users and make it widely available for commercial purposes,” the Washington-based advocacy group said. “The company has done this repeatedly and users are becoming increasingly frustrated and angry.”

Clearly, the Facebook privacy backlash, which has been building for years now, has begun in earnest.

What better time, then, to seek the help of someone like Muris, who created the popular U.S. Do Not Call Registry and just last week received the Miles W. Kirkpatrick Award “for his significant and lasting contributions to the FTC, antitrust law, and the cause of consumer protection.”

Reached for comment, Facebook said Muris is not an official employee. “There have been some reports that Tim Muris has joined Facebook,” the company told me. “Muris has not joined Facebook.”

But he is serving as a consultant, something sources close to the company have told me, though Facebook declined to comment on.

BoomTown runs into venture capitalists all the time in Silicon Valley and elsewhere and usually tries to run the other way.

Not so last week, when I enjoyed a lovely lunch and chat with Accel Partners’ Kevin Efrusy.

Perhaps that’s because Efrusy, who joined the Palo Alto, Calif.-based firm in 2003 (the outfit now best known as Facebook’s VC), has actually been an entrepreneur rather than just an entrepreneurial pundit like too many of his ilk.

He launched Corio, a software-as-a-service start-up that went public, and was CEO of IronPlanet, an online e-commerce marketplace for heavy equipment.

(There was also a stint at consultant Bain & Company, which I am willing to overlook.)

A Stanford University multi-grad with a master’s in electrical engineering, Efrusy is actually named on the Accel Web site as the “source” of the firm’s investment in Facebook.

And he has led Accel’s funding of both consumer and enterprise start-ups, such as social group-buying site Groupon and SpringSource, the cloud-computing unit acquired by VMware (VMW) for $420 million recently.

Here’s the video interview I did with Efrusy about the investment market in both these areas, as well as the overall mood in VC land:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20100322/accel-partners-kevin-efrusy/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20090624/exclusive-yahoo-working-on-major-brand-overhaul-please-no-more-yodeling/ http://allthingsd.com/20090624/exclusive-yahoo-working-on-major-brand-overhaul-please-no-more-yodeling/#comments Thu, 25 Jun 2009 02:39:50 +0000 Kara Swisher http://kara.allthingsd.com/?p=14908

In the past, Yahoo has used killer lasers and giant afros and has even tried a dog rising from the dead to brand itself.

Also, of course, there was the yodeler.

That was in 2003, in a clever television commercial that featured Yahoo’s famous sound, as rendered by yodeling champ Taylor Marie Ware (by the way, if you click on the exclamation point on Yahoo’s homepage, it still emits an annoying male yodel).

Now, in what many sources at the company said is a major push, Yahoo (YHOO) is working on a massive plan to overhaul its brand in order to repair a damaged public image and focus consumers on what defines Yahoo.

The effort is being spearheaded by newly installed Chief Marketing Officer Elisa Steele.

To take on the task, she has hired both well-known brand consulting firm Landor Associates and an outside consultant named Penny Baldwin, who was a former top exec at brand and ad giant Young & Rubicam.

Yahoo had formerly been using Ogilvy & Mather and Siegel+Gale to work on strategic branding issues. Ogilvy is still working with Yahoo, sources said, but it is unclear if Siegel+Gale remains in the mix.

The new branding of Yahoo, said several people close to the situation, might be built around the latest relaunch of its main homepage design.

The important front-page redo had been delayed by CEO Carol Bartz when she took over in January and is now slated for the fall.

Many themes have been considered to depict Yahoo in the future, many along the lines of Yahoo still being a key hub destination for Internet users.

Those possible directions were discussed at a recent off-site meeting of Yahoo’s top execs, led by Steele, who ran through the tangled history of Yahoo’s marketing efforts and showed off some rough ideas for the future.

One motto considered, among several: Yahoo as “your home on the Web.”

Whether it is going to be a sweet home or not is unclear, and does depend on exactly how much Yahoo is prepared to spend on this rebranding effort.

Microsoft (MSFT), for example, is in the midst of a $100 million marketing campaign around the recent relaunch of its Bing search service.

And Google (GOOG) has a brand that hardly needs any introduction–and on which it has spent very little marketing money–in that its name has become the verb that means “search” on the Web for most consumers.

Yahoo’s branding campaign will certainly have to be a big deal, given that it is one of the top Internet sites in the world and has massive name recognition.

And Bartz has been vocal about the importance of touting Yahoo as a well-known brand, even as she has said a lot internally and externally that she detests purple.

(That has long been Yahoo’s main color and also mantra, as in “bleed purple.”)

In an onstage interview with me at the seventh D: All Things Digital conference in late May, I asked Bartz about the image of Yahoo being broken and how she would change that perception and revive its innovative spirit.

“The best way to change the perception is to do a good job and then talk about it,” she answered at D7. “We just have to get our story out there; we have to continue to appeal to the people that come to us, and frankly, at some point people get sick of having us as the underdog and say, ‘Thank God, Yahoo’s back.’”

Well, that could depend on how well its upcoming branding campaign works or not, which must also be based on the product and business strategy Bartz settles on in her rejiggering of Yahoo.

Tomorrow morning, Bartz will preside, along with Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock, at its annual meeting in Silicon Valley, although it is doubtful she will unveil any grand plan then for marketing or other major company strategies.

So, until the branding plans are unveiled, here are some of the more memorable Yahoo advertising efforts.

Yodel:

Lazarus the Dog:

Killer Laser:

Afro-tastic:

Odd Advice-giving Canadian Yahoo Creature:

[Belly Yodel photo courtesy of Yodel Anecdotal on Flickr]

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090624/exclusive-yahoo-working-on-major-brand-overhaul-please-no-more-yodeling/feed/ 6 http://allthingsd.com/20090506/dailycandy-ceo-pete-sheinbaum-steps-down/ http://allthingsd.com/20090506/dailycandy-ceo-pete-sheinbaum-steps-down/#comments Wed, 06 May 2009 10:44:33 +0000 Peter Kafka http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/?p=6991 DailyCandy CEO Pete Sheinbaum is leaving the company, less than a year after Comcast bought the fashion and shopping newsletter from Bob Pittman’s Pilot Group Ventures for $125 million. His last day is Friday.

Sheinbaum, who started working for the company as a consultant in 2000 and took the top job in 2005, says he doesn’t have a new job lined up yet, though I’m told he has options. “I let them know after nine years it was time to look for the next thing,” he says via email.

I’m told that Comcast (CMCSA) is still pleased with the acquisition, which may have been the last Web 2.0 deal to close before last fall’s crash.

Here’s word from Comcast: “We wish Pete well, thank him for his work in growing Daily Candy. Catherine Levene, Chief Operating Officer and [founder] Dany Levy will continue to lead operations. For Comcast Interactive Media, IM, Daily Candy is overseen by Chuck Davis who is EVP at CIM and also runs Fandango. The transition under CIM has gone well and the company continues to grow–DC has added DailyCandy Video and DailyCandy Weddings.”

Here’s an interview with Sam Schwartz, the Comcast executive who engineered that deal and who says he’s still interested in other Web M&A:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20090506/dailycandy-ceo-pete-sheinbaum-steps-down/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20081215/the-168-hour-work-week/ http://allthingsd.com/20081215/the-168-hour-work-week/#comments Mon, 15 Dec 2008 19:34:46 +0000 John Paczkowski http://digitaldaily.allthingsd.com/?p=9637 If the line between your work and home life hasn’t yet been blurred by near-ubiquitous Internet connectivity, just you wait. Because by 2020 it’s likely to have been erased entirely. That’s the word from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, whose recent “Future of the Internet III” study suggests that the dawn of the mobile phone as a “primary” Internet connection will essentially obliterate the boundaries between work and home. Fifty-six percent of the Pew survey’s respondents agreed that by 2020 the formalized delineation of social, personal, and work time will have disappeared. “The 9-to-5 approach will disappear completely, with few exceptions,” ICANN Board member Roberto Gaetano told Pew. “The current separation between ‘work time’ and ‘free time’ is a byproduct of the industrial revolution, and is bound to disappear with it.”

So 12 years from now our work lives will be our lives entire?

That’s an unsettling thought. But if we’re always connected, always on the grid, then what’s to stop it from coming to pass? What’s to stop “the expansion of the work to encompass all time and all space,” as Nick Carr described it in his comments to Pew researchers. A reassertion of the same boundaries we’re seeing erased, I imagine. Otherwise we may have this to look forward to…

Said Benjamin Ben-Baruch, senior market intelligence consultant and applied sociologist for Aquent: “In 2020…a myth will develop that outside of formally scheduled activities, work and play can be seamlessly integrated in most of these workers’ lives. Employers will attempt to convince us that this is a net positive for people because we will be able to blend personal/professional duties…. However the reality will be quite different. Because we can be surveilled whenever we are ‘connected’ and especially because we can be surveilled whenever we are connected using our employer-provided devices, we can and will be controlled. Our employers will gain even more control over work-time discipline and over our lives and will be able to force even more productive working hours from us. Our lives will in fact be increasingly controlled by those who provide us with the devices that will have become increasingly necessary for us in both our work and personal lives as well as those who own and control the networks and network sites that we use and visit. Some companies will try to distinguish themselves as companies that do not actually use their power to watch and control us–but most companies will do the ‘fiscally responsible’ thing of using available technology to assert control.”

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