Commentary

Choosing Fight, Not Flight

As executives continue to stream out of Yahoo following its restructuring last spring, the Web portal's biggest internal critic is still sticking around.
 
Brad Garlinghouse, senior vice president of communications, community and front doors at Yahoo, and author of the so-called "Peanut Butter Manifesto," in which he argued Yahoo's disparate business were too thinly spread, is now pushing for some of the changes outlined in his infamous memo.
 
In particular, Garlinghouse is helping lead the effort to make Yahoo a more open platform by inviting developers to create third-party content. That means releasing APIs in the manner of Facebook to permit development of interactive tools that help boost engagement. "We are going to experiment; we are going to take more risks," Garlinghouse recently told BusinessWeek.com.
 
Given his much-publicized critique of Yahoo, one might have expected him to join other top executives fleeing the company for other opportunities. Among those exiting in recent months: former ad sales chief Wenda Millard, COO Dan Rosensweig, chief technology officer Farzad Nazem and Yahoo Media Group's Geraldine Martin-Coppola.
 
Maybe Garlinghouse just likes peanut butter.

MW

 

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About the Author

Mark Walsh can be reached at walsh@mediapost.com