Yahoo's Decker Blasted For Choosing "Lifer" Patel As Co-Honcho* - Tech Weblogs

Yahoos have had a chance to evaluate the Sue Decker shakeup. Bottom line? They seem okay with her choice of Hilary Schneider as head of the US business, but they want her run out of town for appointing "Yahoo lifer" Ash Patel as head of products.

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[A] spanking new Global Products group...will be headed by Ash Patel, who is currently EVP of Yahoo's Platforms and Infrastructure division... [The] fiefdoms of communications and communities SVP Brad Garlinghouse, Search's Vish Makhijani and Front Door head Tapan Bhat will move under into Global Products.

Which would explain why Makhajani is now headed out the door and Garlinghouse is on the fence about the moves. Bhat is also reported unsure about the new structure and is considering his options.

[T]he prospect of working for Patel is not a welcome one for some Yahoo execs in the Network division. Patel has been at Yahoo since 1996, which makes him one of the oldest of old guards at the company.

'No one wants to report up through him,' said one Yahoo exec. 'He's a Yahoo lifer and not the kind of dynamic leader we need.'

More importantly, anyone want to argue that Yahoo is not disintegrating? The exodus over the past week is astonishing, as are some of the comments on our Sue Decker post about morale at the company.

Putting ash in charge of more stuff is a disaster- he is a nice guy but a terrible manager with grandiose visions but no results. No one outside of a few old engineers have any respect for him and no one will listen to him. I don't think he will get many coming to his defense.