What’s happening is that we might, in fact, be at a time in our history where we’re being domesticated by these great big societal things, such as Facebook and the Internet. We’re being domesticated by them, because fewer and fewer and fewer of us have to be innovators to get by. And so, in the cold calculus of evolution by natural selection, at no greater time in history than ever before, copiers are probably doing better than innovators. Because innovation is extraordinarily hard.

– Mark Pagel, fellow of the Royal Society and professor of evolutionary biology, in conversation with Edge.org

Like victims in the thriller, “Ten Little Indians,” the directors of Yahoo involved in its Microsoft takeover debacle are moving off its board.

Today, it’s billionaire businessman Ron Burkle (pictured here) doing the leaving, after serving since 2001, when he was brought onto the Internet giant’s board by former CEO Terry Semel.

So far under the tenure of CEO Carol Bartz, who came to Yahoo (YHOO) in January 2009, Carl Icahn, the activist shareholder who was also a big player in the MicroHoo fight, departed in late October 2009.

(Icahn has since been dumping Yahoo shares, which reached a high of 75 million and are now at about 12 million, as reported by Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski earlier today.)

In addition, Maggie Wilderotter–who was once thought to be a candidate for Yahoo’s CEO job after former CEO and co-founder Jerry Yang stepped down–left in late September 2009.

Yahoo named Sue James, a former high-ranking Ernst & Young exec, as a new board member in January.

More appointments are likely as Bartz adds directors of her choosing.

Yahoo said in a press release this afternoon that Burkle, who made his giant fortune in the supermarket business, had decided not to stand for re-election at its 2010 annual stockholders’ meeting.

Speaking for BoomTown alone, it is a welcome departure, since it was Burkle, along with Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock, who was most influential and involved in key decision-making in Yahoo’s disastrous battle with Microsoft (MSFT) in 2007 and 2008.

The fight wounded Yahoo badly, both on Wall Street and within the organization, leaving the Silicon Valley icon struggling to return itself to relevance and growth.

Here is the full press release from Yahoo about Burkle’s leaving:

Yahoo! Announces Ron Burkle Will Not Stand for Re-Election to Board

SUNNYVALE, Calif., Feb 16, 2010–Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO) announced today that Ron Burkle has decided not to stand for re-election to the company’s Board of Directors at its 2010 annual stockholders’ meeting in order to devote more time to his other business interests. Mr. Burkle has served on the company’s board since November 2001.

“On behalf of our entire board, I would like to thank Ron for his distinguished service and invaluable contributions to our company and board,” said Roy Bostock, chairman of Yahoo!’s Board of Directors. “Yahoo! and its stockholders have benefited greatly from the counsel, insights and objectivity Ron has brought to the company during his nine years on the board. We wish him well in his future endeavors.”

“It has been a great privilege to serve on Yahoo!’s board and to work with such an outstanding group of people,” said Ron Burkle, managing partner of The Yucaipa Companies.

Here are links to the posts I have done from BoomTown’s trip to Europe–with glamorous stops in England, France and Monaco (and all the videos are below too!)–in chronological order going backward:

Kara Visits the Royal Society in London

Kara Visits Cambridge University

Kara Visits a Feast!

Silicon Valley Loses to the Brits!

Kara Visits Dailymotion in Paris

Kara Visits Netvibes in Paris

Kara Visits the Monaco Media Forum: More Interviews on the French Riviera!

Kara Visits the Monaco Media Forum: Opening Dinner

Kara Visits Monte-Carlo

On the last leg of my trip to Europe to check out Web 2.0 companies, BoomTown spent the day at the Royal Society in the tony environs of St. James’s Park and Pall Mall, for some more lively discussions with more students, academics and entrepreneurs in England.

The Royal Society, by the way, is an “independent scientific academy of the UK and the Commonwealth dedicated to promoting excellence in science.”

In other words: Geek Central of London for more centuries of nerdiness than you can shake a powdered wig at (and, let me just say, there were a lot of powdered wig-wearing techies back when).

As I have written, it’s been a really interesting visit here overall, first at Cambridge University and now here, where a group of entrepreneurs, academics, execs and venture capitalists from Silicon Valley have been mingling with British students, academics and tech entrepreneurs.

It’s all been organized by Ellen Levy of Silicon Valley Connect and U.K.-based tech entrepreneur Sherry Coutu, in partnership with the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts.

So here’s my final video of the events, including interviews with European VC Saul Klein of Index Ventures, as well as Silicon Valley visitors Hans Peter Brondmo of the start-up Plum and Emily Melton, a VC with Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

The conclusion: It’s a small world, after all, as you will see. Also a message from the Queen:

Here’s a video about the visit to Cambridge, including interviews with three cool locally based start-ups–one mobile content play called Bango; Cambridge Temperature Concepts, a fertility company; and Grapeshot, a search algorithm technology business.

All are typical of the “Cambridge phenomenon”–that is, start-ups growing up around the area due to the proximity to the university, which is also known as the Cambridge Cluster or Silicon Fen:

Of course, badly losing the debate at the Cambridge Union Society about where the future home of billion-dollar companies would be was harsh, but there were benefits too.

One of the great things about the discussions at the Judge Business School here–which have been organized by Ellen Levy of Silicon Valley Connect and UK-based tech entrepreneur Sherry Coutu, in partnership with the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts–was the chance to pick your ostrich head up out of the insular hole that is Silicon Valley.

The two days of talks and dinners were useful too to see how much other tech cultures want to learn from Silicon Valley, and also how much tech leaders in California can learn in turn.

(There was also a feast.)

One of the most important things a number of Europeans pointed out, for example, was our obsession with the ultra-trendy (this year, that would be Facebook), at the expense of the much more important paradigm shift (a significant shift toward a more mobile Web experience).

Today, we are all in London at the Royal Society–the U.K.’s top science academy–for another series of talks with students and Web company execs here about the landscape of the Internet.