Earlier today, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates discussed technological innovations for vaccines, ahead of a Global Vaccine Summit being held next week in Abu Dhabi.

Set during World Immunization Week, 300 people — including Gates, who is co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and who will be delivering a keynote address — will gather on April 24 and 25 to talk about what the world community needs to do move forward the effort to vaccinate children, including a plan to eradicate polio by 2018.

It’s an important effort since, according to the Gates Foundation, every 20 seconds one child dies from a disease that could have been prevented by an existing vaccine.

“The key thing to understand is that vaccines are miraculous,” said Gates in a roundtable telephone interview with several reporters, noting that they are low-cost in relation to the huge benefit they provide.

Two key next steps, he said, have to do with a variety of technologies that are being explored to help in the delivery of vaccines, and also finding ways to make them cheaper.

“There is an under-investment in general, particularly in doing things for the poorest,” he said, requiring his private organization and others to pay for the research or to work with big pharmaceutical companies to create technologies that can also be deployed in more lucrative ways in rich countries. “Usually, there is a missing market incentive.”

Still, there is innovation in the sector, even if it is slow.

Gates referenced a “super-thermos” approach that is being field-tested in Senegal that keeps vaccines cold without needing more energy. Another effort is under way to formulate vaccines so that they do not need to be kept cold in the first place. A third is to combine several vaccines together to get the prices down.

Also important are improvements in satellite mapping technology, which allows field workers who deliver the vaccines to better assess where the need is. That’s especially important since a lot of the work is still on the ground, such as the push to eradicate polio in much the same way as smallpox has been. Currently, noted Gates, it is still an issue in just three countries: Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria.

And since reaching near total coverage is critical — “The difference between 85 percent and 90 percent [coverage] can be the difference between success and failure,” said Gates — making sure health workers find the people they are trying to vaccinate is paramount.

“It’s kind of a high-tech thing compared to how it was being done,” said Gates.

But, although there have been great hopes around the use of mobile devices in the field to access and record accurate data on patient visits, immunizations and other health information, it’s still an uphill battle against easier paper solutions.

“The paper-based systems are preferable,” said Gates, because of lack of reliable connectivity and ease of use. “It’s a high threshold to get rid of that and use cellphones.”

Or, as Gates noted in a blog post from a recent visit to Ghana, where cellphone data-keeping is being tested: “Many of us are looking at potential digital strategies for record-keeping, but paper is pretty good.”

(Photo courtesy of the Gates Foundation)

Not the core service (tweets continue to fly as fast as ever). It’s about giving a simple, straightforward explanation of exactly what Twitter is to the masses of people who just don’t get it. An unenviable challenge, if you ask me — for such a simple product, understanding Twitter can be rather complex.

Luckily, I don’t have that job. It now belongs to Gabriel Stricker, Twitter’s current VP of communications, who will head up the company’s consumer marketing efforts from now on. That’s according to a recent change in his Twitter profile, which now lists him as VP of marketing and communications.

Stricker comes from both a PR and a marketing background: He headed search comms at Google for more than five years; in 2003, he wrote a book on marketing strategy, and he has a history in political campaigning.

Historically, Twitter hasn’t had a solid, unified consumer marketing team or a person to lead it for years. Pam Kramer did a short stint as VP of marketing back in 2011, but it didn’t work out so well; Kramer was shown the door after only three months.

Gabriel Stricker

Since then, and even before, Twitter’s consumer marketing efforts have been splintered across the company. And instead of focusing efforts on basic user education of what Twitter is, resources would often be divvied up among departments on a first-come, first-served basis.

Stricker will fold a number of design team employees into his newly christened MarComms department, while the rest of the team will remain focused on designing and building actual products (rather than occasionally being peeled off to work on a promotional launch, for instance). It’ll also likely involve hiring new people (or contractors), which Twitter is actively doing at the moment.

Sales marketing remains a separate division under the control of Tom Thai, who came in from Twitter’s acquisition of Bluefin Labs earlier in the year, and who took the reins from Shane Steele.

Twitter declined to comment on the changes.

And like any company going through a growth spurt, Twitter’s organizational structure has become complicated.

The company has tried breaking into multiple departments with various leaders. But as time has passed and Twitter has scaled, roles have grown confused and inefficient, and communication between some of the departments has suffered.

This is important. Some say the company thrived in its early days from its loose-knit structure, but also suffered from a clashing of big personalities, a revolving CEO seat and defecting employees across the ranks. But as the company continues its slow, steady trudge toward going public, the Twitter of today is trying to be a different animal entirely. That means working out the kinks that still exist inside its organizational makeup, and proving to the public — and the Street — that yes, Twitter is in this for the long haul.

Making this adjustment will also mean clarifying the vision of what Twitter, the product, is, and what it is meant to be. That means faster shipping of new releases, faster decisions being made, and ultimately (hopefully), a happier user base.

To remedy the most recent issues, Twitter made significant structural changes to a number of departments earlier this month, shuffling around key managers in the hope of streamlining some of the more dysfunctional aspects of the company’s interdepartmental communication.

This is likely a good thing — or Twitter wants it to be, at least. But looking back, one thing is clear: It has been a long time coming.

Twitter, not unexpectedly, declined to comment on this story.

The Old Guard

This whole thing began nearly a year and a half ago, when CEO Dick Costolo and Chairman Jack Dorsey started cherry-picking talent from some of the Valley’s top firms. They plucked away Google engineers by the handful, recruiting hundreds of them to staff Twitter’s large engineering operations (Costolo has said more than half of Twitter is made up of engineers).

The idea back then was to restaff some of the key positions in the company with seasoned vets across the four major departments — Product, Design, Engineering and Revenue — the heads of which would report directly to Costolo.

Twitter Product VP Michael Sippey

But the old layout, as it was set up, was complicated. Former SAY Media vet Michael Sippey led as VP of consumer product development, while Othman Laraki was VP of product growth. Revenue had Adam Bain as president of global revenue, with Kevin Weil as his deputy of sorts, acting as director of revenue product. Design was led by Doug Bowman, but then Andrei Herasimchuk was promoted later to become overall director of design, while Bowman continued as creative director.

Lastly, Adam Messinger was poached from Oracle to join as VP of engineering infrastructure in November of 2011, while Chris Fry was brought on in April of 2012 for another key engineering role.

So that was the lay of the land. Costolo had his lieutenants, who ideally would handle things smoothly and hand up the high-level stuff to the top. But as became evident shortly thereafter, that didn’t work out.

It’s Complicated

First of all, it’s tough to have too many cooks in the kitchen. And despite the fact that this layout seemed to be streamlined, there were too many people reporting to Costolo at any given time.

As one insider told me, “This was a mess. One year ago, Dick had four product and design reports and three engineering reports.” In other words, seven different department heads, each with Costolo’s ear.

Beyond that, there were some issues inside of a few departments that contributed to stumbles in workflow.

Design

The Design department has been dysfunctional for a long time. Earlier days saw an “overall lack of process and structure,” another person told me, and a series of new managers may have been an overcorrection, from Doug Bowman to a period with Dorsey’s heavy involvement, then to Andrei Herasimchuk after his promotion.

Design VP Mike Davidson.

Thus, Mike Davidson, a veteran designer who was founding CEO of Newsvine (acquired by NBC), was picked last autumn by Sippey and Messinger to refocus the department. There have also been a series of smaller departures inside the department, and one big one — Andrei Herasimchuk left just a week after Davidson’s appointment.

I’ve been told by multiple people that the design process has improved significantly under Davidson’s reign over the past five-plus months, and he has brought in multiple new hires from the likes of Apple, Facebook and startup PicPlum. He has also increased the department size by 30 percent since his arrival.

What remains to be seen, however, is how much Davidson will improve the output of the overall department.

Engineering

The Engineering department had its own problems. And the setup has been somewhat peculiar.

Adam Messinger was poached from Oracle to act as VP of infrastructure engineering in November of 2011. But at some point along the way, Messinger switched over from infrastructure to VP of application development — essentially a product position. That’s something of a head-scratcher, because Messinger’s background isn’t in consumer products, but infrastructure — the very thing he was hired on to do.

Twitter CTO Adam Messinger

Through all of this, Design was reporting to the Engineering department instead of acting as an independent function as it once used to.

Everything Old Is New Again

So despite Twitter’s grand organizational plan set out last year, things weren’t working out. Design reporting to Engineering just wasn’t working. Engineering leadership was muddled. Costolo had too many people to listen to in order to get things done. As one insider told me, it was “a mess.”

So as of mid-March, there’s a new New World Order at Twitter, a long-overdue “consolidation and clarity in the company,” as one source put it.

Now, according to sources, the structure has been trimmed down to a handful of go-to VPs reporting to Costolo, including Michael Sippey, Chris Fry, Kevin Weil and global revenue president Adam Bain.

Sippey is getting the biggest bump. Laraki left Twitter at the end of 2012 to work on his own thing. Sippey is now vice president of Product and Design, overseeing both departments.

Senior Vice President of Engineering Chris Fry

Fry also gets a radical step up in his responsibilities. He’s now senior vice president of overall engineering. He’ll also work closely with Alex Roetter, who is now a VP in the Engineering department, working on international, growth and revenue engineering. Kevin Weil will continue to act as director of product in the revenue department.

Messinger is the man spun off here, announced last week as chief technical officer of Twitter. It’s curious, though; sources said that in his new position, Messinger lost many — if not all — of the staff directly reporting to him, which would make it seem a less-than-desirable position to be in. I’m also told that Messinger had issues with recruiting enough engineers, a serious problem at an organization of Twitter’s size and scale. Recruiting, as any tech company will tell you, is of the utmost importance.

Of course, it could be that Messinger is better as a high-level thinker, as I’ve been told — someone who would do better focusing on the “big-picture” aspects of Twitter and what it will look like in the future, rather than down in the engineering trenches. Still, perhaps Messinger won’t be satisfied with the high-level CTO role in a few months, and depart for other pastures. (TBD on that one.)

To Be Continued

So that’s that. For now, most of the shifting is kaput (as far as I’m aware), and as it has been put to me, the Sippey/Fry combo is the “new world order in charge of the roadmap,” while Weil and Roetter will hold down the revenue product and engineering duties. (There were one or two other noteworthy shifts as well, including moving Raffi Krikorian up to VP of engineering in charge of Twitter’s platform.)

If all goes according to plan, you’ll hopefully see Twitter-the-product get better on a much faster-paced timetable.

Will it all work better than the previous layout? I don’t know, and I’m sure Twitter doesn’t either. We’ll have to check back in another year.

As I had previously reported, Yahoo’s key business unit — its advertising sales force — is now getting details of a reorganization by its new leader, COO Henrique De Castro.

In making the changes, just weeks ahead of Yahoo’s annual sales conference in Las Vegas on Jan. 21, De Castro is borrowing rather heavily from the set-up of the powerful ad business at Google, from whence he came.

By shifting the sales organization to a “category” model, sales reps at the Silicon Valley Internet giant will sell all of Yahoo’s ad products, as well as its search offerings, across channels in a vertical process organized around advertiser segments, such as automotive, entertainment and packaged goods.

Yahoo has long sold its advertising in a regional and tiered organization against premium and performance inventory in display and search, designed to avoid vertical conflict. Thus, the sales staff have built up advertiser relationships across many areas, which will not work in the new system.

Sources inside the company said regional leaders will now be shifted to running various verticals. There will be support specialists for those areas, too.

Mark Ellis, who was most recently VP of North American sales and global partnerships, will pay a key role in the new org, said sources. It is not clear, though, what role Peter Foster, who has headed audience advertising, will play. Another high-ranking exec, Keith Kaplan, has apparently been shifted to focus on agency relationships.

As I had previously written, there are many different ways to organize sales, but making such major change has potentially large ramifications on Yahoo’s financial performance, at least in the short term, since advertising makes up the bulk of its revenue.

According to numerous sources inside Yahoo, the changes are causing some measure of worry and confusion across the salesforce at the company, since it comes after a lot of wrenching changes over the last year.

That includes the departure of well-regarded Chief Revenue Officer Michael Barrett in mid-October, after De Castro got the COO job. He has left a large gap in sales leadership and in maintaining strong relationships with big advertisers and agencies. De Castro himself is not as well known in the ad marketplace, despite many years at Google in its sales organization.

He will likely have a more high-profile next week at the International CES, the huge annual consumer electronics show taking place in Las Vegas, along with new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, who was a top product exec at Google. The pair is planning on meeting with major ad clients while there, which is their first significant outreach to marketers since taking their new roles at Yahoo.

De Castro had outlined the new ad reorg plan immediately after a multiday offsite with top sales leaders several weeks ago, and said the changes would come at the very beginning of 2013.

The ad staff at Yahoo begin to hear of the changes on Friday, so it looks like De Castro has met his deadline.

Michael Katz, one of Yahoo’s high-ranking online advertising execs, is leaving the company, according to a memo he sent out to staff on Friday.

Considered a savvy online ad player and a well-regarded entrepreneur, Katz came to the Silicon Valley Internet giant a year ago when it bought Interclick, the ad-targeting company he co-founded and headed, for $270 million.

Yahoo later used Interclick’s technology in its audience-buying platform called Genome. In a reorganization announced in January, Katz was placed in charge of sales operations and data and performance optimization for Genome.

The data unit is at the center of efforts by Yahoo’s new CEO Marissa Mayer to turbocharge its ad business.

But the Katz missive, which is below in its entirety, clearly signaled that his departure was not an amicable one, which sources underscored was part of a larger rejiggering of the ad sales staff under new COO Henrique De Castro.

“As some of you are starting to learn, my last day with the company will be today,” wrote Katz on Friday. “Leaving Y! is not the hard part — how it happened and leaving all of you is what makes this difficult.”

How it happened, said several sources, was that Katz was suddenly told by HR head Jackie Reses last week that there was not a place for him, only days before a large 12-month retention bonus was to be paid out to him for the Interclick acquisition.

While it is an unusual thing to part on willfully difficult terms with an entrepreneur, as it sends a bad signal to others considering joining the company, Yahoo’s new leadership has been playing hardball with a lot of top execs it is parting ways with, and is also limiting departure packages.

Former marketing head Mollie Spillman, for example, was suddenly let go after she was replaced by former Lockerz CEO Kathy Savitt. And, though he had wanted to leave, former CFO Tim Morse was also told of his replacement in a swift exec house-cleaning move, as was former HR head David Windley.

Of course, such moves are not unusual when a new set of leaders enters the corporate picture. That’s why many at Yahoo expect even more changes to come soon in the ad unit, with most assuming that Mayer and De Castro will bring in new staff they had previously worked with at Google.

Currently, top Yahoo ad execs include Peter Foster, GM of audience advertising at Yahoo; and Mark Ellis, VP of North American sales and global partnerships.

It will be interesting to see what happens to them and others as part of a large ad reorg at Yahoo now taking place, which will definitely include a variety of departures and arrivals. One recent notable Yahoo ad exec departure, for example, was Debbie Menin, who headed entertainment and travel sales strategy, and is now a top sales exec at hot video entertainment network Machinima.

More will come in the new year, given that De Castro has recently briefed employees on a plan to move its sales organization to a “category” model. Simply put, that means its sales reps will sell all of Yahoo’s ad products, as well as its search offerings, in a vertical process organized around advertiser segments.

That massive shift is not Katz’s to worry about anymore, it seems. Here’s his entire email to staff, which is a pretty eloquent one, as goodbye letters go:

Friends and Colleagues,

6 years ago if someone would have told me that the hardest part about building a business would be to one day say goodbye, I would not have believed them. As some of you are starting to learn, my last day with the company will be today. Leaving Y! is not the hard part — how it happened and leaving all of you is what makes this difficult. I will miss the daily interactions and will take with me the many memories. This has honestly been so much fun.

I have learned a lot along the way:

Sometimes winning looks like losing. If you don’t fail, you can’t progress and the stakes only get bigger as you go further down your path.

Be genuinely happy for those that are successful at reaching their goals. If you spend anytime wishing it were you, it will never be.

Stay humble, and never declare victory.

Approximately correct is better than definitely wrong. Do not let perfection be the enemy of excellence.

We are all human — we may make mistakes, we must forgive, forget, and move on together.

Treating people right is not an option.

Treat adults like adults and they will behave like adults. Rules are for children.

People and culture are everything. It’s about so much more than free food and parties, it cannot be forced and without it a business cannot succeed.

I consider myself so very lucky to have known a handful of loyal friends that took a chance, quit their jobs and risked a lot to build this business with me. Their loyalty and hard work helped interclick get off the ground and for that I will forever be grateful. The team they helped to build has truly made this the greatest place to work. Each and every one of you made interclick the very best company to work for.

I would like to leave you all with a reminder of what together we built:

– A company that started with $27,000 and sold for $270,000,000

– A company that redefined the way that marketers think about audience targeting and data

– A company that went public in 2009 on NASDAQ defying all odds

– A company that spit in the face of adversity early in 2011 and came out victorious

– A company whose people are the future of this organization.

So be proud of what together we achieved, look back and know you were part of something big. Then look ahead and know that this is just the beginning, we will all one day build again. For those of you that continue your career at Y!, I ask that you don’t lose sight of greatness. Remember what you are capable of and continue to make me proud.

Thank you for your loyalty, passion, dedication, and collaboration. The finish line is only the beginning of a new race.

-MK

In what will be a major shift in how the Silicon Valley Internet giant sells online advertising, Yahoo’s new COO Henrique De Castro has briefed employees on a plan to move its sales organization to a “category” model, according to numerous sources close to the situation.

Simply put, that means its sales reps will sell all of Yahoo’s ad products, as well as its search offerings, in a vertical process organized around advertiser segments, such as automotive, entertainment and packaged goods.

This is how Google, where both De Castro and CEO Marissa Mayer recently worked, conducts its ad sales efforts. (After copying free food and smartphones, staff evaluation efforts and more, What Would Google Do seems to be strategery at Yahoo these days.)

In contrast, Yahoo has long sold its advertising in a regional and tiered organization against premium and performance inventory in display and search.

The move from regional to vertical is a “seismic shift,” said one source quite accurately. That’s because Yahoo’s go-to-market efforts have been designed to avoid vertical conflict and its sales staff have built up advertiser relations across many areas. In a vertical organization, those reps will be forced to give up these long-term relationships with marketers, some of which have been built over years.

There are, of course, many different ways to organize sales — and each has its fans and detractors. But one thing is clear: Making such a major change has potentially large ramifications on Yahoo’s financial performance, at least in the short term, since advertising makes up the bulk of its revenue.

The change might also result in some attrition among the sales staff, said sources, although many at Yahoo are expecting that De Castro will bring in his own execs from outside to help with the transition. (One interesting name I heard floated was former Googler Penry Price, who was close to De Castro when they both worked there. He is currently president of Media6Degrees, an ad targeting start-up.)

De Castro (pictured here) will need all the help he can get as he overhauls Yahoo’s sales efforts. Well-regarded Chief Revenue Officer Michael Barrett left Yahoo in mid-October after De Castro got the COO job.

His departure has left a large gap in sales leadership and in maintaining strong relationships with big advertisers and agencies. De Castro himself is not as well known in the ad marketplace, despite many years at Google in sales (more on that to come).

Currently, the key ad execs at Yahoo under De Castro are Peter Foster, who heads audience advertising, and Mark Ellis, VP of North American sales and global partnerships.

De Castro outlined the new ad org plan to staff immediately after a multi-day offsite with top sales leaders last week, at which Yahoo’s acquisition options in the ad tech market were also discussed.

Sources said De Castro noted that the changes could take place as early as January 1.

De Castro is also planning to have Yahoo’s annual global sales meeting for the end of January in Las Vegas. Last March, the gathering — then set for about 1,300 advertising staffers in Florida — was cancelled due to a restructuring under ousted CEO Scott Thompson.

In addition, sources said, Yahoo is planning on having a much more prominent presence at the upcoming Consumer Electronics Show — also taking place in Las Vegas in January — in order to solidify its relationships with advertisers.

Its big weapon at the giant annual confab will apparently be Mayer, who has not yet interfaced significantly with the company’s big ad clients since taking the top job in July. At CES, sources said, Yahoo is hoping the “Marissa Halo” — i.e. excitement around the telegenic exec — will help boost its business.

While it is one of the largest consumer electronics and mobile companies in the world, Korea’s Samsung has a relatively quiet profile in Silicon Valley.

In fact, while it has had a longtime facility in San Jose for two decades, its execs are not well known to many except the top echelons of the tech sector here and Samsung’s interactions with the entrepreneurial culture have been decidedly low key.

No longer, it seems.

Besides a previously announced new 8.5-acre campus in Mountain View for its U.S. research and development center, slated for completion in 2014, sources said the company is close to signing a deal for a prominent venue in downtown Palo Alto that will house a start-up accelerator.

The location that the company is now negotiating is the second floor of the former Borders Books space on University Avenue. The historical property has a splashy movie marquee, since it used to house the Varsity Theatre.

It’s not quite Oppa Gangnam Style, it is a big move for Samsung.

While it is unclear if the new office will focus on making investments in start-ups or incubating its own innovation, sources said it will be aimed at linking Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and other players more closely with Samsung.

Sources said the move is being spearheaded by a relatively new hire by Samsung: David Eun, who became its EVP to lead a new push to create more media offerings in December. Previous to Samsung, Eun has been an exec at both Google and AOL.

Eun is well known in the Valley already, but a new location that will focus Samsung’s digital efforts should raise the company’s profile with the digerati here.

Also on the docket to do that is Samsung’s other new major facility. In September, right in the middle of its high-profile patent trial with Apple, the company announced that Samsung Information Systems America, its U.S. R&D Center, would expand and relocate to a new campus.

“The R&D Center will provide a state-of-the-art campus that can support the current rapid growth in the organization, and also provide the infrastructure to support Samsung’s open innovation and university collaboration activities,” Samsung said in a press release at the time. “Construction is anticipated to start in the second half of 2013 on the company’s two new six-story class-A office buildings totaling approximately 385,000 sq. ft. and two 5-6 story parking structures, with occupancy expected in 2014.”

In other words, Apple: Samsung is now officially in the house in Silicon Valley.

Luke Beatty, the founder of Associated Content, has been named managing director of TechStars’ Boulder, Colo., program.

Beatty, who had been an entrepreneur in residence at the start-up accelerator, had previously been a top-level content exec at Yahoo before leaving in April. The Associated Content unit had been bought by the Silicon Valley Internet giant in 2008 for $90 million.

As described on its Web site, the organization takes only 10 companies per city: “TechStars is a mentorship-driven seed stage investment program. We run a three month long program in Boston (MA), Boulder (CO), Cloud (San Antonio, TX), New York City (NY), and Seattle (WA) once each year … These companies get $18,000 in seed funding. In addition, companies accepted into the program are offered a $100,000 convertible debt note by a group of prominent VCs immediately upon acceptance into TechStars.”

“I really believe in the TechStars community-driven model and the viability of the start-up scene in Colorado,” said Beatty. “It is my good fortune to be able to work with the diverse group of successful entrepreneurs that TechStars supports — both existing and prospective.”

Added TechStars CEO David Cohen: “Luke has been a mentor here at TechStars for some time. Not only is he an amazing entrepreneur, but he’s the kind of person that digs in and goes deep. It’s obvious that he genuinely loves working with start-ups, and that makes him a natural fit here at TechStars.”

According to an internal memo, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer has brought back Jay Rossiter, who left the company under the regime of Scott Thompson, to lead its platforms effort “focusing on the tools and technology supporting our externally facing products.”

The move also take back a huge swath of engineering responsibilities at the Silicon Valley Internet giant from David Dibble, who was given a wide purview over all technology in June under interim CEO Ross Levinsohn.

Mayer smoothed over the change — Dibble will now be back in charge of internal infrastructure — in the memo to staff about the change, noting: “I want to call out that Dibble has been an incredible technical leader and tremendous member of my staff, and I’m confident this realignment will help us bring clear focus and faster execution within each organization.”

Rossiter was at Yahoo for five years, before leaving for a short time, having led its cloud efforts and other tech projects.

The hiring back of Yahoo is interesting, given that Mayer was widely touted as someone who would attract big-time new talent to gird its tech efforts.

In any case, here’s the memo:

From: Marissa Mayer
Date: November 13, 2012, 4:42:53 PM EST
To: “all-worldwide@yahoo-inc.com”
Subject: Welcome back Jay Rossiter!
Reply-To: Marissa Mayer

YAHOO! PROPRIETARY AND CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION — DO NOT FORWARD

Hi All –

Today, I’m excited to welcome back a long-time Yahoo, colleague and friend. Jay Rossiter is returning to Yahoo! reporting to me as EVP of Platforms, focusing on the tools and technology supporting our externally facing products. As many of you know, this is an area of in which Jay has spent much of his career, including his five years here at Yahoo!. As a true engineering leader, Jay fully understands the intricacies of platform excellence — especially how important it is for us as we build great products for our users and advertisers.

Jay will lead our efforts in creating a world-class platform technology stack for the company. The technologies created by Jay’s team will include Cloud Services, Hadoop, Personalization & Targeting, Mobile/Presentation platform technologies, Consumer Platforms, Membership and supporting Development Tools. As part of this alignment, Elissa Murphy, Bruno Fernandez-Ruiz, James Carroll, Charles Marker, Rammohan Kordale, and Ty Lee will now join Jay’s team.

Additionally as we continue to ensure we are architecting our products with excellence, Amotz Maimon will join Jay’s leadership team. This new structure, focus at the E-Staff level coupled with Jay’s track record at Bell Labs, 3COM, Oracle and at Yahoo!, position us well for some big wins in the platform space.

David Dibble will continue to lead many of our critical technology functions as EVP of Central Technology — focused on the internal infrastructure that is so critical to our success. Dibble will lead our data centers, service engineering, CIO, IT, and internal security functions with Mark Morrissey, Randy Roumillat, Randall Gannaway, and Justin Somaini on his team. Scott Burke and RonBrachman will also continue to report to Dibble. I want to call out that Dibble has been an incredible technical leader and tremendous member of my staff, and I’m confident this realignment will help us bring clear focus and faster execution within each organization.

In Jay’s words: “I am absolutely thrilled to rejoin the ‘new Yahoo!’ with the increased momentum and focus on building great products leveraging world-class technology. I’ve been watching the changes from afar, having spent the last few months fulfilling a lifelong dream of traveling across Africa, Asia, and Europe with my family. I am ready to re-engage.”

Please join me in welcoming him back!

Marissa

Sometimes — even in the most complex of organizations, which software behemoth Microsoft most certainly is — it does come down to a simple choice.

And in the case of the seemingly sudden departure of Windows head Steve Sinofsky yesterday, several high-level sources at the company said that it came down to former CEO and co-founder Bill Gates’s backing of current CEO Steve Ballmer in the controversial decision to part ways with the powerful exec.

The goal? To better allow various units to work together more closely going forward.

While Gates — who is now chairman of Microsoft’s board — has had a longtime and very close relationship with Sinofsky, he supported the move by Ballmer to promote more integration of Microsoft’s other divisions and also involve other top executives more significantly than ever before in the planning and development of the next version of Windows.

This more collegial cross-division effort was different from the closely held, command-and-control and even secretive method for which Sinofsky had been well-known throughout the company. In fact, numerous sources said, it was anathema to him.

“There was Steve’s way or no other way,” said one exec, in a common sentiment about Sinofsky’s iron-handed rule of the flagship Windows business. “Now, in the new world we’re competing in, it’s about creating strong areas of integration among all our products.”

In this regard, Sinofsky was not known as someone who played well with others. While considered highly effective and “deeply brilliant” by most for being able to lasso Microsoft’s most important unit, he also had a longstanding reputation for being very difficult to work with.

And that includes working with Ballmer, who sources said Sinofsky had clashed with, and who also had been wary of Sinofsky, especially since he had been one of the internal candidates mentioned as a possible CEO successor.

Sources at Microsoft did not waste a moment to point out that the situation was akin to the tension between ousted software exec Scott Forstall at Apple and its new CEO Tim Cook.

A favorite of the late CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs, who protected the prickly Forstall from criticism, his continued challenges after Cook took the reins at Apple ended with a similarly sudden departure.

Except in Sinofsky’s case it was not as sudden as it seemed. AllThingsD had gotten wind of preparation for his departure over the last several weeks, from a number of sources inside and outside Microsoft, even as Sinofsky readied the significant launches of both Windows 8 and Surface.

In fact, I had queried Microsoft about Sinofsky’s possible plans to leave over the weekend, but company spokesman Frank Shaw had declined to comment.

But even for those who are cheering the move internally, the departure of Sinofsky now leaves a decided leadership void in the upper ranks of the company.

Sinofsky demonstrated the ability to both tame the massive beast that is Windows and to push the operating system in new directions, all while hitting deadlines. Even with his challenging personality, those are significant feats.

Still, that accomplishment was often overshadowed by Sinofsky’s willingness to mix it up with other execs.

“He had no factions, except those who worked for him,” said one source. “He picked a lot of fights.”

That included tussles with former chief software architect Ray Ozzie — who left Microsoft in 2010, in part after battling against Sinofsky over how the cloud-based world was shaping up, and how Microsoft should respond.

Likewise, former Entertainment and Devices unit leaders Robbie Bach and J Allard also found themselves on the losing end of a corporate battle with Sinofsky, as Microsoft axed their planned Courier tablet and agreed to give tablet responsibilities to the Windows team. Both left the company in 2010.

Sinofsky also clashed with former Microsoft Business division head Stephen Elop, who left the company in 2010 to run Nokia, now an important partner in the smartphone business.

Having sided with Sinofsky in all those fights, though, Ballmer belatedly decided that he wasn’t the right choice to bring the company together in the future. Sources said Ballmer raised those concerns with Gates, who agreed.

Sinofsky’s departure is not without risk, because it’s not clear who at the company now has both the business and technical savvy to predict where the industry is going, and to point the company in that direction.

And it’s also uncertain if it is possible for Microsoft to now pull as a team at all, given the company’s longtime and decidedly pronounced proclivity for siloed fiefdoms like Sinofsky had built at Windows — an empire that will now, presumably, be disassembled for a new and more cohesive structure.

“The idea is for collaboration across boundaries that have been in place for too long,” said another source. “It’s easier said than done, of course.”

Of course, but sources said that among the key execs to look at in this regard are Online Services head Qi Lu and Servers & Tools President Satya Nadella.

Both have deep technological talents, as well as being well-liked at Microsoft.

More on what the Sinofsky departure means for them next.

Now, as the lion’s share of the social giant’s user base accesses the site via mobile devices, Facebook has undergone a major internal organizational shift, retooling product workflows to better focus on the phone.

Engineering teams are morphing. Software cycles are being rejiggered. It’s a materialization of the company’s newest mantra: “Mobile first.“

The Old Days

Facebook has taken flak for its mobile strategy for some time. Its smartphone apps, for example, were sluggish and underperforming compared to others like Twitter.

Some of the blame for these deficiencies is placed on a technology bet Facebook made years ago, making HTML5 a key component of its mobile strategy. Put simply, HTML5 is a coding language that can handle some of today’s more taxing Web features. And Facebook’s apps were built with heavy use of HTML5.

Using a language like HTML5 has its benefits. For one, it let Facebook spread much faster. Any phone with a Web browser can access Facebook’s mobile site, which the company spent much of its effort refining early on.

Not to mention that many of today’s engineers grew up using Web-based languages back in the early dot-com days. That makes it much easier to recruit talent for Facebook’s ever-growing engineering team.

But as we’ve moved toward a “native” world of smartphone app development, the classic Web-centric engineering emphasis is harder to maintain. “Pushing” a piece of new code live to the desktop and mobile Web is a much faster process than making changes to a native iOS or Android application. For native apps, there is a mandatory review of app changes from Apple’s App Store. And with every change made to an app, that means users need to download a new update to the app.

Previously, Facebook split dealing with these problems in two. Desktop coders were part of one group, while the mobile apps teams were separate. In fact, as product manager Dirk Stoop told me, the native iOS and Android apps were so small in the early days, only a handful of people were responsible for maintaining the iOS and Android applications — two of the most-downloaded apps in the entire world.

This wasn’t enough. Facebook’s Web-centric culture didn’t translate over to native app development the same way. Something had to change.

A Different Framework

The Facebook product structure of today looks very different than it did before. Teams are separated across the company by product rather than platform.

So, for example, the Facebook Messenger group, led by Facebook veteran Peter Deng, is one team composed of desktop, mobile and native engineers who create features for every place that this product appears. This is the same for Photos, the team which Stoop leads.

Both of those teams, you may recall, produce standalone apps outside of the proper “Facebook” native application. This, Deng tells me, is part of a strategy focusing on improving these products faster, essentially making each app a “testing ground” for the main Facebook app. If the team sees increased use in a specific feature in the standalone app, for example, that feature could be integrated into the main app.

Timing is also a focus. To shift the “push-whenever” mentality of a Web-focused coder, Facebook has put all new code updates into staggered release cycles.

Deng’s team, for instance, updates the iOS Messenger app every six weeks, like clockwork. This gives the team a better sense of deadlines and timing, while minimizing the amount of updates users need to download. Desktop coders still push more frequently, but are now relegated to doing so twice a day.

Perhaps the most drastic change is philosophical. Product managers want teams to “own their code,” to put more intention and responsibility behind any changes they make.

“This is about understanding that there is some level of permanence in the code you ship,” product manager Michael Sharon told me. “This is educating our people about quality.”

End Game

Facebook talks a big game. But is this shift actually going to benefit users?

Deng and his fellow product managers believe so. In a recent update, two of the most popular features from Messenger and Camera were integrated into the Facebook main iOS app. The idea is, Facebook’s app will get better, faster and stronger with the modular approach.

Not every timed release will be groundbreaking. Most have included bug fixes and optimizations, while others include better feature additions. It’s less about revamping the application and more about getting into a timing groove.

Ultimately, Facebook hopes the shift will pay off in the masses being happier with their mobile experience, unlike the old days when the native apps were built heavily with HTML5. Ideally, that makes for a more engaged, more active Facebook user.

That’ll let the engineering team rest a bit easier. At least until the next product cycle begins.

Big management shifts at Apple are now taking place.

Scott Forstall, the man in charge of its iOS mobile software efforts and a major and longtime executive at the tech giant, is leaving next year and will remain an adviser to CEO Tim Cook until then.

In addition, new retail head John Browett is headed out the door.

As part of the move, Apple noted that four key execs — Jony Ive, Bob Mansfield, Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi — would “add responsibilities to their roles.”

Ive gets “Human Interface”; Cue will take over Maps and Siri voice recognition responsibilities; Mansfield will run a new unit called Technologies, “which combines all of Apple’s wireless teams across the company in one organization”; and Federighi gets the big job of iOS and OS X.

More to come on what happened, but Forstall’s departure is very big news and a drastic move for such an important player in the tech space.

He had big fans and also many detractors for his sharp-edged personality, as well as what some described as exhibiting “growing open challenges” to Cook himself. Forstall had previously been called “CEO-in-waiting” in one media account in Fortune.

In addition, numerous sources noted persistent tension between Forstall and several other key execs, especially the powerful design chief Ive.

Veiled internal politics at Apple aside, Forstall has been a key part of Apple’s success over the last decade, especially in the development iPad and the iPhone.

Recently, there has been some level of ire at Apple over the troubled rollout of its own mapping software and the replacement of Google’s popular service, which was Forstall’s responsibility. (No, this move does not mean everyone gets Google mapping back, as one person asked me.)

Browett’s leaving is a little less of a surprise. Since he got the job, he has alienated many within the highly successful retail organization at Apple, many sources said.

His departure comes less than one year after the former Dixons CEO was hired by Apple to succeed Ron Johnson, who left for J.C. Penney in November 2011. Recently he’s been criticized by some Apple Store employees for unfriendly policy changes aimed at increasing Apple’s retail profit margins.

More to come, obvi, but here is the official press release from Apple, which it put out with the most understated title of all time:

Apple Announces Changes to Increase Collaboration Across Hardware, Software & Services

Jony Ive, Bob Mansfield, Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi Add Responsibilities to Their Roles

CUPERTINO, California — October 29, 2012 — Apple® today announced executive management changes that will encourage even more collaboration between the Company’s world-class hardware, software and services teams. As part of these changes, Jony Ive, Bob Mansfield, Eddy Cue and Craig Federighi will add more responsibilities to their roles. Apple also announced that Scott Forstall will be leaving Apple next year and will serve as an advisor to CEO Tim Cook in the interim.

“We are in one of the most prolific periods of innovation and new products in Apple’s history,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “The amazing products that we’ve introduced in September and October, iPhone 5, iOS 6, iPad mini, iPad, iMac, MacBook Pro, iPod touch, iPod nano and many of our applications, could only have been created at Apple and are the direct result of our relentless focus on tightly integrating world-class hardware, software and services.”

Jony Ive will provide leadership and direction for Human Interface (HI) across the company in addition to his role as the leader of Industrial Design. His incredible design aesthetic has been the driving force behind the look and feel of Apple’s products for more than a decade.

Eddy Cue will take on the additional responsibility of Siri® and Maps, placing all of our online services in one group. This organization has overseen major successes such as the iTunes Store®, the App Store℠, the iBookstore℠ and iCloud®. This group has an excellent track record of building and strengthening Apple’s online services to meet and exceed the high expectations of our customers.

Craig Federighi will lead both iOS and OS X®. Apple has the most advanced mobile and desktop operating systems, and this move brings together the OS teams to make it even easier to deliver the best technology and user experience innovations to both platforms.

Bob Mansfield will lead a new group, Technologies, which combines all of Apple’s wireless teams across the company in one organization, fostering innovation in this area at an even higher level. This organization will also include the semiconductor teams, who have ambitious plans for the future.

Additionally, John Browett is leaving Apple. A search for a new head of Retail is underway and in the interim, the Retail team will report directly to Tim Cook. Apple’s Retail organization has an incredibly strong network of leaders at the store and regional level who will continue the excellent work that has been done over the past decade to revolutionize retailing with unique, innovative services for customers.

Apple designs Macs, the best personal computers in the world, along with OS X, iLife, iWork and professional software. Apple leads the digital music revolution with its iPods and iTunes online store. Apple has reinvented the mobile phone with its revolutionary iPhone and App Store, and is defining the future of mobile media and computing devices with iPad.

Yahoo said today in a regulatory filing that it had hired one of Google’s top sales execs, Henrique De Castro, as its COO.

Earlier today, I had reported that CEO Marissa Mayer had been close to nabbing the advertising exec, who has most recently been Google’s president of partners business solutions.

De Castro is getting a pile of money for taking the job, including a $600,000 yearly base salary and an annual bonus that could double that figure. In addition, the Silicon Valley Internet giant will give him $36 million in stock grants, including a one-time retention equity award of $18 million and $18 million in the form of performance-based stock options.

He is also getting $1 million in “make-whole” cash for forgoing compensation from Google and $20 million in stock to replace his shares at the search giant that will vest over four years.

That is a very big check, although Mayer garnered an even bigger one when she joined the company in July.

Yahoo’s regulatory statement on the De Castro hiring is embedded below in its entirety, so you can read about his new riches for yourself (unless Yahoo’s persnickety legal head tries to block it).

Said a Google spokesperson about the departure: “We’re grateful to Henrique for all of his contributions at Google and wish him all the best in his new role at Yahoo!”

Both Mayer and also former Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson have made previous overtures to nab De Castro, who has held a number of high-level jobs for Google across the globe, including at DoubleClick, in display ads and with major partners.

While he had previously rebuffed those efforts, this time De Castro bit.

There were signs he might this past week, after De Castro canceled a major offsite for his employees, and several attendees who know him well said he was not present at the company’s first night of its annual Zeitgeist event for advertising and publishing clients. The suave De Castro is usually a more noticeable fixture at such gatherings.

This is Mayer’s first big hire at Yahoo, having added only lower-level or less well-known execs to her stable of talent since she was appointed.

She touted the hire in a tweet, although the news was long out the door, while also noting on Twitter it was her first full day at the office since having her first baby two weeks ago.

My first full day back in the office, and I’m excited to kick it off by announcing my new COO, Henrique de Castro: businesswire.com/news/home/2012…

— marissamayer (@marissamayer) October 15, 2012

The hiring does create a potential issue in the sales arena, especially with current head of revenue Michael Barrett. De Castro and Barrett worked together at Google and multiple sources said the pair did not get along there.

It might not matter. While Barrett has publicly said he planned to stay at Yahoo under Mayer — he was hired by interim CEO Ross Levinson this summer before she arrived — many sources said he does not want to be at the company for the long term.

De Castro has a lot of work to do for the big payout he is getting and it will be a big challenge for him to turn around the troubled organization.

Along with declining growth, search market share, engagement and more, Yahoo also has had a management turnover issue of epic proportions.

De Castro will presumably be in charge of making it all better at Yahoo when he arrives sometime before the beginning of the year and is likely to focus on operations while Mayer zeroes in on products.

One area of trouble: While she has lavished attention on cultural issues and on the company’s tech troops, sources said most of the advertising and media leadership at Yahoo have had little interaction with Mayer since she arrived this summer.

Advertising, of course, is Yahoo’s biggest money maker.

The Portugal-born De Castro has a lot of experience here and is decidedly more of a charmer than Mayer.

More importantly, he is a very high-profile hire, as well as a colorful one. He speaks a menu of languages, dresses with a lot of style and is a worldwide traveler. I know him a little bit and find him to be smooth and confident, even if a little cagey.

Before Google, De Castro worked at Dell and also McKinsey.

All this makes him a perfect choice for Mayer, who is also a former Googler, since she has been considering purchasing a range of companies in the advertising tech space. The most likely candidate of late is PubMatic, which has been in early talks with Yahoo about being acquired.

The Silicon Valley start-up would be a solid add to Yahoo’s ad platform offerings, especially if it wants to stay competitive with Google. PubMatic helps publishers effectively manage their display ad inventory, and competes with Google’s AdMeld.

(Ironically, Barrett ran that start-up, which he sold to Google for $400 million about a year ago.)

Here is the De Castro hiring document from Yahoo:

YHOO-20121015-8K-20121015

And here is the official press release from Yahoo:

Henrique de Castro Named Chief Operating Officer of Yahoo!

October 15, 2012

SUNNYVALE, Calif. – Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) announced today that Henrique de Castro has been hired as chief operating officer (COO). Reporting directly to Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer, de Castro will be responsible for strategic and operational management of Yahoo!’s sales, operations, media and business development worldwide.

“Henrique is an incredibly accomplished and rigorous business leader, and I’m personally excited to have him join Yahoo!’s strong leadership team,” said Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo!. “His operational experience in Internet advertising and his proven success in structuring and scaling global organizations make him the perfect fit for Yahoo! as we propel the business to its next phase of growth.”

“The combination of Yahoo!’s unique properties with high quality content, its renewed focus on outstanding user experience and its massive reach bring tremendous value to users, advertisers and partners,” said de Castro. “This is a pivotal point in Yahoo!’s history, and I believe strongly in the opportunity ahead. I can’t wait to join Marissa and the team and get started.”

De Castro brings more than 20 years experience leading operations, strategy, partner management and revenue generation for some of the world’s leading brands. Most recently, he was vice president of Google’s worldwide Partner Business Solutions group, where he was responsible for advertising platforms and services for Google’s publisher and commerce partners. Prior to that, he led Google’s media, mobile and platforms organization, where he helped to grow the business significantly. Prior to Google, de Castro spent two years at Dell Corporation, where he managed sales and business development operations across Western Europe. He has consulted for McKinsey & Company, where he advised numerous clients across many different industries. His career also includes senior positions in private equity and advertising businesses.

De Castro will join the company on or before January 22, 2013, or as soon as he has satisfied his obligations to his current employer.

According to sources close to the situation, News Corp.’s Chief Digital Officer Jon Miller will soon be leaving the media giant.

It seems to be a cordial, although perhaps inevitable, parting — sources said Miller will remain an adviser to chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch, as well as COO Chase Carey and deputy COO James Murdoch, for a year after his departure in late September.

Update: News Corp. confirmed the departure in a press release, which is embedded below.

His leaving brings into focus the fate of News Corp.’s overall digital strategy in an upcoming new structure. Miller was hired in 2009 to turbocharge the company’s long-troubled digital assets.

But I had noted in an article in July that the well-known Internet exec was not likely to continue at News Corp. in the wake of a complex transaction that will ultimately break the company apart into two separate entities — an entertainment company and a publishing one.

That’s a very different situation from when Miller was hired by the media giant to lead its tech and online initiatives and make digital a priority across its many divisions.

Not for lack of trying or access to powerful News Corp. head Rupert Murdoch — it has been a mixed bag for Miller in his tenure.

That’s due in no small part to a problem faced by many execs like Miller: The difficulty of successfully pushing digital initiatives inside a large traditional media organization.

His job has encompassed everything from a failed effort to revive its once mighty Myspace service to selling it and other properties off to working to improve its Hulu partnership, where he serves on the board.

It is not clear who will replace Miller as one of the News Corp. directors at the complexly-owned premium video service, which had been for sale and then not recently.

One of the brighter Miller accomplishments for News Corp. has been forging decidedly better relationships with key Internet companies, both large and small, as well as with venture investors in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.

That was most pronounced and visible between Apple and News Corp., which struck a number of deals to work together, some of which worked and some that had much less success.

Miller has also been active in China, working on several digital investment opportunities for News Corp. there. That included a recent $70 million investment in Bona Film Group.

He was key to a recent $45 million investment by the company and others in the company that sells the Roku video streaming device.

He also worked on various New Corp. efforts on creating channels on Google’s YouTube, including WIGS, a drama series. The jury is still out on these kinds of creative endeavors, of course, especially to a company with much more lucrative traditional film and television assets.

There was a possibility that, in his leaving, Miller might form a separate investment fund to focus on digital publishing and media, funded by News Corp. or even by the Murdoch family, who control the company.

But that has appeared not to have worked out, said sources.

Before he came to News Corp., Miller ran an investment fund with former Yahoo exec Ross Levinsohn called Fuse Capital. He also was chairman and CEO of AOL under its Time Warner ownership and was a top exec at IAC/InterActiveCorp.

Miller has remained an active angel investor, funding a range of start-ups such as Maker Studios, Voxer, Science, Solavei, Personal.com, as well many as others.

He is also chairman of OpenX and serves on the boards of Shutterstock and TripAdvisor.

Clearly, this is a world Miller will return to easily and it’s likely he’ll be starting something sooner than later. (Maybe bringing the band back together with Levinsohn?)

JonathanMillerAug23.2012

(Full disclosure: This Web site is owned by Dow Jones, which is owned — in turn — by News Corp.)

According to several sources, Yahoo is now on the hunt for a COO — with special emphasis on someone with turnaround experience — presumably to be a worker-bee No. 2 to product-guru CEO Marissa Mayer.

Several Silicon Valley execs and others outside of tech have been contacted by Spencer Stuart, the executive talent firm that is working on a number of other exec searches for Yahoo.

It is not clear if Mayer is on board this plan for a COO and other sources said she has different ideas for the management organization at Yahoo, including an elaborate general manager system that is similar to that at Google. Mayer, who come to Yahoo from the search giant, has put a lot of practices from her former employer in place, from free food to weekly all-hands meetings to more stringent hiring.

In any case, those candidates contacted recently have been told that the company is looking for a top exec with a focus on restructuring and also finance. Presumably, in this scenario, Mayer will focus on product and innovation — her strengths — while the COO would perhaps be responsible for making the trains run on time on the business side of Yahoo. A plethora of employees who have met with her have stressed her intense interest in products, which is mirrored by much less attention to more mundane business issues.

Perhaps the highest profile COO hire of a similar sort has been Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg, who was brought in at a dicey time for the social networking site to work on the business while co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg focused on its product.

Such an exec could be a good idea, since — despite the wide latitude Mayer has been given to make changes — Yahoo can not afford much damage to its current operations as Wall Street investors wait for her strategy to reinvigorate the company.

In fact, a recent filing in which Yahoo said Mayer was rethinking its promise to return a $4 billion-plus cash windfall from the sales of assets in China to shareholders caused the stock to drop quickly, largely due to a decided lack of information about what she planned to do with the money.

It will be interesting to see who would be intrigued by the mammoth job of helping fix Yahoo, since most think the process will inevitably include major layoffs.

Spencer Stuart’s Jim Citrin worked on the troubled tech giant’s recent CEO search, which ended up in the hiring of the high-profile Google exec. Mayer’s hiring was a public relations coup for Yahoo’s board, especially its large shareholder Dan Loeb of Third Point.

Mayer herself has also been reaching out to her extensive circle of colleagues at Google and elsewhere in tech to come help her turn around Yahoo. Most recently, she has been trying to hire a former Googler Katie Jacobs Stanton, who once worked with Mayer and now runs international efforts for Twitter.

At the same time, several top execs have left Yahoo since Mayer arrived as she conducts a house cleaning and puts her own team into place. That has included its former interim CEO Ross Levinsohn and HR head David Windley. More such departures are expected.

Mayer has also kept execs, including making interim general counsel Ron Bell the permanent one last week. She has also relied heavily on Yahoo co-founder David Filo.

But her new hires have mostly been lower-level ones, made up of staff who had been close to her at Google.

I would ask for comment from Yahoo, but one of those Mayer newbies at Yahoo — Anne Espiritu, who appears to be a ghost — is still sitting on a number of my and other reporter’s requests to comment on various issues that have been completely unanswered. I have now decided to move onto the other two — Patricia Moll Kriese and Andrew Schulte — to see if they disappear too.

After former interim CEO Ross Levinsohn departed Yahoo earlier this week, I noted that it was only a matter of time before more execs headed out the door with the changeover to new leader and former Googler Marissa Mayer.

So it is written, so it shall be done, it seems, with two significant departures from the company this week — with one tech exec going to Apple and another product exec headed to an interesting new online education initiative.

According to several sources, Adam Bechtel — who has been the VP of infrastructure at Yahoo — will be leaving for an unspecified job at Apple.

At Yahoo, Bechtel was essentially the No. 2 exec under tech, platform and ops head David Dibble, and had purview over its data centers, network, systems, storage and edge technologies. He joined Yahoo almost a decade ago, via its acquisition of Inktomi.

Also out the Yahoo door is Jonathan Katzman, a product ace who was part of the social efforts across Yahoo, led by Mike Kerns. He was on the Kerns team that drove its most notably successful product in a while, Social Bar, which has become one of the most popular apps for sharing on Facebook.

Katzman came to Yahoo after its acquired Xoopit — an email-focused sharing product — in 2009. He’s headed to be chief product officer at the Minerva Project, which is attempting to build the next top-tier university online.

There have been many other departures of less-well-known execs at Yahoo, several sources said, mostly due to fatigue over the number of management changes at the company. Most recently, that includes sales exec Marc Grabowski, who left without other plans.

“It’s not Mayer’s fault, but some of us are just done,” said one person who is leaving. “A lot of us just can’t take another restructuring.”

That said, a large number of others who had been contemplating leaving Yahoo are now in a wait-and-see mode regarding what their new CEO will do and who she will pick to help her turn it around.

Among current top execs, that has prompted who-will-stay-and-who-will-go guessing games internally, with Mayer grilling staff up and down the organization to get a better lay of the rocky land.

Perhaps the most insecure in their status are the top employees on the media and sales side of Yahoo, who were aligned with Levinsohn and his vision of the company as a content-centric business. Those to watch include strategy exec Jim Heckman, sales head Michael Barrett, and media head Mickie Rosen, among others.

Also, intriguingly still in the mix: Former Americas ad sales head Rich Riley, who is apparently still with the company, despite a June declaration to move on after some months. (Things change fast at Yahoo!)

On the tech and product side, it will be interesting to see if Mayer will promote from within its ranks — such as elevating Shashi Seth, SVP of Yahoo’s connections business. Other execs who could move in this arena are Dibble, and also Mark Morrissey, who now works for Dibble as head of engineering operations.

Of course, there are the other parts of Yahoo that Mayer also now has responsibility for, such as legal, marketing, finance and HR. The execs to monitor there include CFO Tim Morse, HR head David Windley, and marketing chief Mollie Spilman.

Longtime Yahoo legal head Mike Callahan left the company before Mayer’s arrival, so that job has been given to Ron Bell — Hi there, Ron, be nice! — on an interim basis. But look for movement there too.

Much speculation is also centering on what tech stars Mayer might bring in from Google or from elsewhere, including via acquisition.

She’ll need a lot of firepower, of course, to turn the company around, and has told various execs that she expects to make a lot of talent hires to get Yahoo back to producing at more innovative levels.

As I reported earlier today, she has got one already — former Google PR exec Anne Espiritu is now moving over to corporate communications at Yahoo. At the same time, Mayer abruptly let Yahoo’s most recent PR spokeswoman, Dana Lengeek, go.

Expect Mayer to continue to pull from Google, which is chock-full of talent and where she had a coterie of favorites, some of whom are there and some of whom have moved on. Those mentioned as possible hires still at Google include shopping exec Samir Samat and social-networking-famous (and fantastic) Orkut Büyükkökten.

But many of Mayer’s close colleagues have left Google already and are ensconced in important jobs, including: Dylan Casey, who is now director of product management at Path; PR exec Gabe Stricker, who runs communications for Twitter; Craig Silverstein, now at the Khan Academy; and Ben Ling, who is currently COO of the Badoo “meeting network.”

Mayer also reportedly holds former Googler, FriendFeeder and Facebooker Bret Taylor in very high regard. But the entrepreneur — exactly the kind of tech powerhouse she needs to bring into Yahoo and soon — is now in the midst of creating a new start-up.

When I pinged Taylor today about whether he’d consider taking up a challenge such as Yahoo, he texted back:

“No, definitely still starting my own company, despite the fact that I am a big fan of Marissa.”

It’s a nice compliment, and Mayer’s got a lot of people rooting for her, of course — the real trick will be to turn some of the strongest ones into Yahoos.

Photo courtesy of ThisLife

Andrea and Matt Johnson, however, are parents, and they assure me that it’s crazy-making to organize the number of pictures they’ve taken of their child. Which is why the couple spent the past two years working on ThisLife, a Web-based app that organizes all of a user’s disparate photos across all of their photo applications and devices.

The idea is, you’d be better off with all those photos in one place — in the cloud (of course). So users can upload their photos stored on hard disk, as well as sync photos taken across the many, many photo-sharing applications that exist already, like Instagram, Picasa, and most importantly, Facebook (as well as a number of others). ThisLife recognizes when you’ve got two copies of the same photo uploaded by scanning the metadata, and automatically tosses out the lesser-quality versions of each photo.

In and of itself, this isn’t revolutionary. The real gem in the app is something less sexy, but indispensable for those who have loads of old photos they’d like to browse: The organization features.

Each photo is tagged by person, place and activity, making a retroactive search simplified and isolated to relatively few parameters. The kicker is, you don’t have to go back through and tag each person and place one by one in each photo, a la the extreme hassle of, say, relabeling all of your music files upon importing them to iTunes. ThisLife scans the metadata from the photos, which often includes location data. And the app’s ever-learning facial-recognition algorithm uses your already-tagged Facebook photos to discern who exactly is in each photo. It’s hard to appreciate in words, but it’s a great example of an organization function that really should have appeared long ago.

Oh, and obviously, there’s a built-in sharing function to send uploaded photos from ThisLife back out to your disparate apps, if you’re so inclined.

After spending much of the past two years bootstrapped while working on the project, ThisLife announced on Friday that it secured $2.75 million in venture funding in a seed round led by Madrona Venture Group, with participants that include Morado Ventures, Rogers Venture Partners and former AOL exec Brad Garlinghouse.

And refreshingly enough, the app comes with a built-in business model (unlike countless other start-ups I’ve seen, which are “too focused on making a great product” to ever worry about money). Using the freemium model, users can store up to 1,000 photos in the cloud for free, while bumping that number up to 50,000 for a family plan that costs about 15 bucks a month. And, surprisingly enough to the Johnsons, a significant portion of those in the limited beta are paying customers, not just freebie users.

The most updated version of ThisLife’s well-designed mobile and iPad apps just hit the App Store, both of which made for very attractive browsing during the time I spent with them. While the Web app is currently invite-only, the couple expects to launch widely in the coming weeks.

While he has only been CEO of Yahoo for less than five months, in the next several days Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson is facing perhaps the most critical moment of his short tenure.

According to sources with knowledge of the situation, the board of Yahoo is not likely to take long in assessing whether he will stay or if he will be let go, due to a controversy around how a non-existent computer science degree got on his bio and also in Yahoo regulatory filings.

A special committee of independent directors is now investigating the matter, including trying to assess the damage has had on Thompson’s ability to lead the Silicon Valley Internet giant.

How quickly the board moves is likely to be a sign of their intent. If within the next days, it is likely to let the former president of eBay’s PayPal payments unit go and replace him with a current company exec; if it waits longer and shows some public support of him — which the board has not done since the scandal erupted — Thompson’s chances are better that he will only be given some sort of censure.

One important task is also closely considering the impact of possible legal problems related to Thompson and others signing documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission that were not accurate.

One thing is clear from interviews with multiple sources, many members of the board have not been happy with how Thompson has handled the matter since activist shareholder Daniel Loeb of Third Point uncovered the problem a week ago.

While first tossing the borked bio as an “inadvertent error,” Thompson was then largely silent about the issue with staff, despite being in close meetings with them, which caused stress among key execs.

Then, he made a public announcement in which he apologized for only the “distraction” caused by the incident and not the error itself as some had hoped he would.

Yesterday, apparently feeling it was time to try to explain things face-to-face, Thompson made another attempt to explain what happened in two separate meetings with his direct reports and then his senior staff, apparently trying to get through to employees that he did not fake his resume nor did he give an inaccurate bio to Yahoo when he was being hired for the job earlier this year.

Thompson thought it was time — now that the board investigation was underway — to answer questions directly, said a source.

Among other things, Thompson gave a somewhat convoluted explanation that it appeared in his bio due to a misunderstanding during an interview with a headhunting firm. And that he never noticed it once it proliferated And that when an NPR interviewer asked him directly about his CS degree, he did not want to correct her in mid-discussion — although others report he said he did not hear the question fully.

Sources said Thompson — who is on the midst of initiating changes across a large and troubled organization, after laying off 2,000 employees — thought the sessions went well, that he clearly communicated that he was taking blame for the problem and its repercussions. Those sources also noted that he received support for doing so after the talks.

But, more than a dozen others I interviewed who were listening remotely — some of whom I sought out and some who contacted me directly — thought Thompson’s complex explanation was deeply problematic and that he tried to foist the blame on others rather than on himself.

Every one of these people expressed the need for him to step down to allow Yahoo to move forward.

What the board thought about the performance is still not clear, said sources, but things are coming down to two distinct scenarios.

The first is a quick parting of the ways with Thompson, within days, either for cause or via a negotiated settlement. Others at Yahoo involved with perpetuating the mistake in the bio are also at risk.

This option is perhaps the more likely at this moment, unless the scandal dissipates and employees continued rancor over the situation can be assuaged soon.

In this case, sources said, Thompson will be replaced by a current board member or a member of the top staff. When directors fired Carol Bartz last fall, CFO Tim Morse became interim CEO and he is one of the likely candidates for the job again.

The second scenario centers on needing Thompson to complete a number of complex transactions related to the sale of Yahoo’s Chinese assets and its re-negotiations with Microsoft over its troubled search partnership, among other things.

In that case, Thompson will be censured in some manner by the board and will also probably have to endure some punishment for allowing false regulatory documents to be filed by Yahoo. Others at Yahoo will also be subject to the same treatment in such an outcome.

How will it turn out?

Only board member Patti Hart has so far paid for her faulty vetting of Thompson, stepping down from the board earlier this week.

But whether she will be the only shoe to drop in what has turned out to be a bizarre wildfire that as raged across Yahoo’s troubled landscape remains to be seen.

Thus, most definitely watch this space this weekend.

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.
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Yahoo CEO Scott Thompson just sent this email to Yahoo employees, about a new leadership organization for the company.

“It’s time for Yahoo! to move forward, and fast,” wrote Thompson (using punctuation I really like, with nice comma deployment). “And as we do, I want every one of us to keep one thing top of mind: what we do is about our customers, not about us.”

The core groups will essentially be media, connections and commerce, led by Ross Levinsohn, Shashi Seth and person to be determined (but I hear it is newly departed PayPal exec Sam Shraugher).

And, as previously reported here: Sales is off by itself, split into regions; ad technology is off to the side, pending sale; corporate and operations remain the same; and the central product organization is blown up and moves back into the units.

I’d go into more deets, but it is all below and tracks on numerous reports I have done, including this morning.

But please enjoy the memo, which Yahoos will be chewing over at an all-hands meeting later this morning:

Yahoos –

It’s time for Yahoo! to move forward, and fast. And as we do, I want every one of us to keep one thing top of mind: what we do is about our customers, not about us. For Yahoo! to win in our core business, every one of us must put our customers first. Specifically, we must focus all we do on the users who trust us to give them personalized content and communications, and the advertisers who want to connect with our users. To be very clear, our highest priority is winning in our core business and that will earn us the right to pursue new growth opportunities.

To accomplish that we’re establishing a new leadership structure, organizing all of our activities around Yahoo!’s customers. Effective May 1, Yahoo! will operate in three groups — Consumer, Regions and Technology — all supported by our established Corporate teams. Each of the three groups will be charged with delivering the best customer experiences and have very clear accountability for getting results.

Our new Consumer group will be all about creating great, engaging user experiences. Our geographic Regions will serve our advertisers and agencies and be accountable for all Yahoo! revenue. Our Technology teams will provide the advanced infrastructure, technology and science to enable our Consumer group and the Regions to deliver our best products and experiences into market, at scale, and fast.

Consumer

Our success is determined by how well we engage consumers and give them fun and informative experiences that they feel were designed just for them, on all screens. Our Consumer group will include three units — Media, Connections, and Commerce — and each will provide users the uniquely relevant and personalized content and services they expect and deserve, leveraging Yahoo!’s vast consumer interest data. We will redouble our focus on Yahoo!’s competitive advantage — our core, owned and operated (O&O) consumer properties. And importantly, we are bringing dedicated product engineering resources into each unit, much closer to our users.

• Media Our online media presence has long been our company’s clearest competitive advantage. Our Media group, led by Ross Levinsohn, will include all our media businesses globally with our marquee properties at the forefront: Homepage, News, Finance, Sports, and Entertainment. We will bring top design and engineering talent and differentiated technology — like Yahoo!’s Publishing Platform (YPP) — into close partnership with content producers and editors. Ross and his team will continue to drive real differentiation into our leading media experiences, including everything from our original coverage of breaking news events to tentpole events like the Royal Wedding and the upcoming Olympics and US Elections.

• Connections will be led by Shashi Seth, and include consumer businesses that connect and inform our users including Search, Communications and Social properties such as Mail, Messenger, Flickr, Answers, and more. The highest priority for Shashi and his team will be to think well beyond how users search, communicate and share online today. The Connections team is charged with fundamentally re-imagining how we design and deliver the next generation of these foundational Yahoo! experiences.

• Commerce We will renew our focus on commerce, and I expect this newly created team to play a critical role in Yahoo!’s future growth. Our Commerce teams will build on Yahoo!’s massive reach and strong consumer relationships, but their charter will go beyond traditional ecommerce. The focus of this team will be driving higher ROI for advertisers and agencies that reach users on Yahoo! by closing the loop for them between user interests, advertiser spend, consumer intent, and purchase behavior. The foundation of the new Commerce group will be Autos, Shopping, Travel, Jobs, Personals and Real Estate. We expect to name the leadership of this business unit shortly.

Regions

Advertisers and agencies are the primary customers and focus for each of our three regions. Our regional sales teams will be the advocate and voice for our advertising customers: listening to them and driving their needs into the products we develop. Regional sales must bring urgency and tenacious sales execution to all we do for advertisers. In addition, these teams will leverage our unique and vast data resources to position Yahoo! as the place to connect with users and generate the best, measurable ROI on their ad spend.

• Americas will be led by Rich Riley, who led the team responsible for extraordinary strides in EMEA in recent years putting the region on a path of consistent engagement and revenue growth, as well as meaningful market share and profit gains. Rich will be moving from Europe to our New York office soon.

• APAC, which includes many of our fastest-growing countries and strongest consumer products, will continue under the exceptional leadership of Rose Tsou.
• EMEA will be led on an interim basis by Christophe Parcot, EMEA’s regional sales leader, as we commence the search for a new leader for the region.

Americas, EMEA, and APAC will be fully accountable for Yahoo!’s revenue in their respective regions. I expect our Regional leaders and teams to work in very close collaboration with Ross and our other Consumer group leaders to fully align their goals for revenue and engagement as well as their execution, keeping our users and advertisers top of mind.

Technology

Our Consumer group and the Regions will continue to be supported by some of the most talented technology professionals in the industry, providing the advanced platforms and technology that allow Yahoo! to deliver great customer products.

• Core Platforms, led by Mark Morrissey, will provide the foundational platforms, technology, and research to enable great customer products and leverage Yahoo!’s vast data stores to enable deep personalization and optimized monetization. Mark’s teams will lead Apt, RMX, User Data & Analytics, our content optimization relevance engine (CORE), Yahoo! Labs and other key technology functions.

• Central Technology will continue to be led by David Dibble and include our data center and service engineering efforts, as well as our cloud infrastructure teams.

Yahoo! has made real progress in building modern, scalable platforms and infrastructure, but to move at the rapid pace our customers and our industry require we need more than scalable technology. This is among the most important changes we’re making: we must bring some of our best product designers and engineers much, much closer to consumer needs and demands. Many of our top engineers will continue building on our foundation platforms and technology to continue to drive speed and scale. But to ensure we really know and can serve our customers, we’ll also deploy top design and engineering talent into our Consumer business units, directly supporting our users’ favorite Yahoo! products to ensure we move much faster and meet customer needs with every product we deliver.

Corporate

Our major corporate functions will continue to support these new groups. Finance, Legal, and HR will remain under the strong leadership of CFO Tim Morse, General Counsel Mike Callahan, and Chief HR Officer David Windley, respectively. As we search for a Chief Marketing Officer, Penny Baldwin will serve as interim leader for the Corporate Marketing and Communications teams. John Kremer will lead a newly-created Transformation team that will ensure full implementation of and accountability for our restructuring and related organizational changes.

Chief Product Officer Blake Irving has decided to leave Yahoo! and will work closely with the new leaders over the next several weeks to ensure a smooth transition. He has made a tremendous contribution to the advancement of Yahoo!’s product strategy and execution over the last two years and I know you will join me in wishing him all the best in the future.

You will hear more from our business leaders about their plans to move each of these groups forward in the coming days and weeks. As we look to Yahoo!’s future, all of us must remember to always keep our customers first in everything we do. Ultimately, only our customers will decide whether we win or lose in the market.

I look forward to speaking with you at our All Hands Tuesday. If you have questions before we meet, please check Backyard for information and answers. If you don’t see the answers you need, please post questions on Backyard, or you may email questions directly to the leadership team.

Scott

According to sources close to the situation, Yahoo’s Chief Product Officer Blake Irving has turned in his resignation and it has been accepted by the company.

The process for Irving’s departure is a bit more formal since he is a top officer at the Silicon Valley Internet giant. But it is perhaps not that surprising, given that a brunt of the 2,000 employee layoffs at Yahoo yesterday were in his part of the organization.

Irving has not been at Yahoo this week during those wrenching cuts — that’s because the resignation has been in the works for some time.

In fact, in a restructuring to be announced next week, the central product organization at Yahoo he runs was essentially blown up, with the development moving back into media, sales and consumer products units being planned.

In addition, Yahoo’s new CEO Scott Thompson has been contemplating selling off large parts of the company’s advertising technology platforms, as well as its search business, also now under Irving.

Irving had largely opposed the strategy that Thompson has been aiming toward, said sources, and also strongly disagreed with laying off so many employees without a clear plan in place. Many inside and outside Yahoo agree.

He was also apparently concerned about the massive engineering and research talent exodus of late, especially in Yahoo’s vaunted Labs arm, which suffered major cuts in the layoffs.

The former Microsoft exec has no plans for another job, said sources, but has had a number of offers.

Yahoo confirmed the resignation when I called to ask about Irving’s goodbye. “Yahoo wishes him all the success in the future,” said the spokesperson.

Irving came to Yahoo in mid-2010 under former CEO Carol Bartz, who was fired last fall. Under his leadership, the product unit had focused a lot on creating a major publishing platform for Yahoo and other media companies. He debuted its Livestand content app earlier this year.

Here is a video interview I did with Irving in happier times, talking about Yahoo products, in which he sported a very handsome blue cashmere sweater:

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120405/exclusive-yahoos-chief-product-officer-blake-irving-resigns/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120404/its-official-yahoo-lays-off-2000-employees/ http://allthingsd.com/20120404/its-official-yahoo-lays-off-2000-employees/#comments Wed, 04 Apr 2012 13:22:13 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=192985

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

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120404/its-official-yahoo-lays-off-2000-employees/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120403/yahoos-layoffs-tomorrow-morning-of-up-to-2000-will-only-be-the-first-move-of-a-larger-purge-to-come/ http://allthingsd.com/20120403/yahoos-layoffs-tomorrow-morning-of-up-to-2000-will-only-be-the-first-move-of-a-larger-purge-to-come/#comments Tue, 03 Apr 2012 22:16:46 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=192483

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.

]]> http://allthingsd.com/20120403/yahoos-layoffs-tomorrow-morning-of-up-to-2000-will-only-be-the-first-move-of-a-larger-purge-to-come/feed/ 0 http://allthingsd.com/20120330/yahoo-layoffs-set-to-begin-next-week-followed-by-restructuring-the-week-after/ http://allthingsd.com/20120330/yahoo-layoffs-set-to-begin-next-week-followed-by-restructuring-the-week-after/#comments Fri, 30 Mar 2012 16:00:38 +0000 Kara Swisher http://allthingsd.com/?p=191538

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.

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