Yahoo's Reorganization: Where's David Filo?

Yahoo has a typical of its prolix (1,540 words!) and over-capitalized kind ("Yahoo! Re-Aligns Organization to More Effectively Focus on Key Customer Segments and Capture Future Growth Opportunities") press release out tonight making a big deal tonight about a reorganization, one highlighted by the elevation of CFO Sue Decker to the position of head of the crucial Advertiser & Publisher Group. This should come as zero surprise to anyone has been paying attention, as a reorg has been tipped at Yahoo for months, and Sue Decker has been seen as the anointed one for at least as long.

I'm fine with Sue's change. It's not a bad decision, nor is it an exciting decision. Instead it seems more like a Yahoo decision, with Decker being smart and aggressive, and at least somewhat more tech savvy than Terry Semel, which is all good, even if incremental. She is a finance person, however, so she is not going to be the go-to strategy person at Yahoo any more than Semel was.

So, I am left with a question though: Where's David Filo? The Yahoo co-founder is absent from the press release, a document that includes explicit mention of Yahoo's other co-founder ("...continued participation of Yahoo! co-founder Jerry Yang"). Granted, Filo has long taken a low-key role at Yahoo, but the choice of Yang-specific words struck me as strange.

Comments

[Kris Tuttle:]

My impressions are the same with respect to Sue. To me Semel is sharp as a bowling ball and without someone with some vision and leadership they will continue to flounder around. Risky situation if they don't figure it out and do something in the next year.

2006 Dec 06 05:25 AM

[Joe Sheehan:]

The Yahoo website quotes:

<i>He is currently on a leave of absence from Stanford's electrical engineering Ph.D. program.</i>

My guess is that he's fully submerged in that program, and also, he'll probably be involved in another start-up effort, since so many come out of Stanford's graduate engineering school. So while he's not gone officially, I bet he isn't very likely to come back.

2006 Dec 06 12:39 PM