Back in Charge

Yahoo announced yesterday that CEO Terry Semel will step down as CEO, handing the top spot to co-founder Jerry Yang. The move keeps with a dozen-year trend of large interactive firms turning to Hollywood executives for mainstreaming, and, provided they survived, later washing themselves of the LA ethos.

Early moves by Semel to push technology applications involving video and studio content faded in the face of relatively little user interest.

In the six years of his tenure, Yahoo fell from the Internet's number one growth story to relatively stagnant second fiddle. That transition was starkly noted at the most recent shareholder meeting - which might explain why rumors of Semel's resignation made Yahoo's sleepy stock leap three percent at the end of today's trading session, according to MarketWatch.

Former CFO Susan Decker, long thought the groomed heir to Semel's throne, will be kicked up to the president's office.

In a sign that perhaps the change of command was voluntary, Yahoo said it would issue no severance package to Semel, who will remain on the company payroll as non-executive chair of the company's board.