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Jerry Yang took the helm of Yahoo a year and half ago with a plan to restore the then struggling company he co-founded to its former glory.  Amidst mounting pressure from major shareholders, he’ll step down with the task far from complete.

Yahoo announced Monday evening that executive search firm Heidrick and Struggles has been retained to help them find a new CEO.  Jerry Yang will stay in the roll until a replacement is found.  He’ll then revert to his role as “Chief Yahoo.”

Running Yahoo has never been an easy task.  As demonstrated in historical stock charts depicting the stewardship of each of Yahoo’s CEO’s (shown here split adjusted), despite the company’s amazing audience growth, there’s been a consistent ebb and flow to the valuation of the company since its public debut. All of the executives saw value erode in the later periods of their tenure.

Jerry Yang’s short term was particularly tempestuous.  From February 2008 until May, he went to head to head with Steve Ballmer and Microsoft. Through the spring and summer, he faced off with shareholder Carl Icahn over board seats and corporate strategy.    Into the fall, he’s faced defecting staff and an economic environment not before seen in the lifespan of the company.

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In June, in the wake of Microsoft’s bid for the company, Yahoo’s management team stepped into the lion’s den and made an alternate deal with Google.   The agreement, which focused on the lucrative search advertising market that Google dominates but both Microsoft and Yahoo participate in, provided terms for the placement of Google-sold advertisements next to Yahoo’s search results.

Yahoo’s president Sue Decker said at the time that the non-exclusive “agreement [would provide] a source of funds to both deliver financial value to stockholders from search monetization and to invest in our broader strategy.”  Based on then current monetization rates, Yahoo expected the partnership could mean near $800m in annual revenue opportunity or incremental cash flow in the range of $250m to $400m.

The one obstacle was the approval of anti-trust regulators.  It turned out to be too big a mountain to climb.

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Last week, Google announced they’d reached agreement with publishers and authors to settle a three year old copyright battle over their book scanning practices.  Both sides expressed great satisfaction with the result.  In public statements the deal, which still must be approved by the court, was lauded as a “landmark” and “a win for everyone.”  Turns out, however, not everyone affected by the deal was that pleased.

The Harvard University newspaper, the Crimson, reported a few days after the announcement that the University will not, at this time, participate fully in Google Book Search.   Copyrighted works in the Harvard collection will be sequestered from Google scanners.

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In relationships, timing is everything.  No matter how appropriate a pairing, both parties need to be ready. The stars need to align.    Four years ago, Tivo and Netflix ambitiously tried to hook up to deliver an internet video distribution service.   Unfortunately, the companies weren’t mature enough. Moreover, the marketplace (e.g. movie rightsholders) were not comfortable endorsing such a forward looking union with a license.   Today, things are different.

Rekindling the old flame, Netlfix and Tivo announced Thursday that the’ve joined in partnership. Click to Read More

Throughout 2007, Microsoft and Google seemed locked in a race to digitize  and index the books of the world.  For months the companies seesawed back and forth with news of agreements granting exclusive access to world renowned library collections.

Google tied up the University of Lausanne in France and the University of Mysore in India.  Microsoft captured the British Library in the U.K. and the University of Toronto in Canada.  Google wooed Stanford and Harvard.  Microsoft snared Cornell and the University of California.

Back and forth it went in what seemed to be a small but important front in the companies’ ongoing competition for audience eyeballs and next generation search technology.  Then last spring, in May, abruptly, it stopped.

With little warning, and to limited fanfare, Microsoft pulled the plug.  Organizing all the world’s information wasn’t their mission.  Microsoft was interested in next generation search and a sustainable business model.  Creating a library instead of crawling existing ones apparently was no longer worth it, so they ceded the fight.  Copyright lawyers chasing Google’s Book Search project were less generous, until today.

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The pink slips are starting to pile up.  Beyond the 1,500 job cuts announced Tuesday by Yahoo, start ups with limited revenue have begun cutting back to stretch their existing capital reserves too.

Search start up Mahalo, which has raised more than $20m from firms including Sequoia Capital and News Corp, has laid off near ten percent of its staff.

Fellow Sequoia start up, music social network iMeem, which has raised more than $50m, Click to Read More

In July, the results failed to meet high expectations.  Now, its October, expectations were low and the results exceeded them.  Such is the sometimes awkward reality of predicting the performance of a company that refuses to give much in the way of forward guidance.

Thursday, Google reported third quarter results. They return showed sequential growth is decelerating, but overall the performance was more than enough to best expectations. Net income of $1.35b or $4.24 a share, good enough to best last year’s result of $1.07b (3.38/share) for the same period by 26%. Revenues were also up handsomely to $5.54b from $4.23b last year.   

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