• San Francisco Chronicle, Tuesday, August 7, 2007 10:32 AM

Yahoo needs a superstar executive. Apple has Steve Jobs, Google has Eric Schmidt, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, and Microsoft has Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer and Ray Ozzie. Former CEO Terry Semel and former Chief Sales Officer Wenda Harris-Millard are gone, and the understated Jerry Yang lacks panache. Yahoo's Bradley Horowitz, vice president of advanced development, stands out. And advanced development is exactly what Yahoo needs--to be first in the Next Big Thing.

With beer in hand, Horowitz recently presided over the company's annual "Hack Day," in which its programmers pitch original ideas. Horowitz is part muse, evangelist and matchmaker. He knows that Yahoo, long criticized for being too bureaucratic, needs to take risks.

Which analysts say is part of the reason Yahoo stock has suffered recently. A.G. Edwards' Denise Garcia puts it pointedly: "When you think of innovation and technology companies, Yahoo doesn't necessarily come to mind." All of Yahoo's recent hits, like Flickr and Del.icio.us, have been acquisitions. Little, except maybe Yahoo Answers, has been built from the inside. Now contrast that with Google, which is constantly innovating and building internally. Horowitz agrees: "The onus is on us."

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