February 15, 2008 | Friday
Bradley Horowitz leaves Yahoo for Google
By Jackie Danicki - Blogger in News |PPC |Search Engines |Google |Yahoo |Microsoft
This is quite a blow to Yahoo, at a time when it really doesn’t need another knock: Bradley Horowitz, the popular exec who routinely acted as the public face of Yahoo at conferences, has jumped ship for Google. Rumours that this would happen emerged just a few days ago, with reports that Horowitz had been interviewing with Yahoo’s rival since late 2007.
Horowitz didn’t waste much time taking to his personal blog to start explaining himself (some would say spinning) after the news broke early this morning.
The question should not be “Why are you leaving?”, but rather the rhetorical “Isn’t it amazing and wonderful that Yahoo created circumstances that allowed you to stay for so long?!”
He even includes a handy FAQ, though I’m not sure how execs who were made redundant this week - and there are plenty of them (including two contacts of mine, Yahoo Brickhouse’s Salim Ismail and Susan Mernit, head of Yahoo Personals) - will feel about Horowitz’s response to whether or not he was also laid off:
Ha, I wish. Yahoo provided very humane (even generous) packages and accommodations for those folks.
But that’s not the only HR story of note from the big three this week. Things at Microsoft are also about to change - and in a way that could have quite an impact on how search is regarded and sold to their advertisers.
Steve Berkowitz, senior vice president of Microsoft’s online services group, is one of over a dozen execs involved in a reorganisation there. Berkowitz will be leaving this month, while seven new senior vice presidents and seven new corporate vice presidents have also been announced.
Danny Sullivan, for one, is not very enthusiastic about this shake-up:
My impression is that [Brian McAndrews, senior vice president of Microsoft’s Advertiser and Publisher Solutions Group] isn’t a search person at heart. I don’t mean that negatively, nor do I disagree with his stated view that other forms of advertising online and electronically will continue to grow and get recognition. But it sounds like he’s going to be the non-search ads vice president, while [senior vice president of search, portals & advertising group, Satya Nadella]’s going to be the search ads VP. And that’s fine, though if Microsoft is trying to success in online advertising, having search segregated off from the cool kids of display, online video ads, gaming ads and more is probably going to be an issue down the line.
So did Bradley Horowitz bail on Yahoo out of fear of working with these teams? He answers on his blog:
I have no more insight into the current MSFT / YHOO discussions than any avid reader of the NYT, WSJ, etc. Given my trajectory, I honestly haven’t invested a lot of time or energy wondering which scenarios would play out best for Yahoo. I have faith that Yahoo’s board and management will optimize for the best possible outcome.
As the shareholder lawsuits against Yahoo have commenced, we’ll see if investors have the same faith in Jerry Yang and his foot soldiers.
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