That popping noise you hear could be a number of things.
First, it could be the sound of champagne bottles being opened near Daniel Loeb, Yahoo shareholder and perpetual thorn-in-the-side for the company's Board of Directors – that's a proxy fight for you.
Second, it might be the sound of Yahoo's other investors, shareholders, and employees collectively hitting their heads into the wall at the latest turn of events befalling Silicon Valley's favorite company-turned-reality show.
Finally, it could be the ker-chunk of a car door slamming shut, Scott Thompson's soon-to-be final gesture before he takes his final, long drive away from Yahoo's campus – as so many failed CEOs have done before him.
According to a new report from AllThingsD's Kara Swisher, Thompson plans to step down from his post atop Yahoo and the company will allegedly spin his departure as the result of, "personal reasons."
That sounds a heckuva lot better than, "Nobody caught the fact that he never had the Computer Science degree he said he had," an issue that already claimed one Yahoo director just this past week. Patti Hart, CEO of International Game Technology and the director who headed up the CEO search that ended up settling on Thompson, announced that she will not seek re-election to Yahoo's board.
But that's not the only shuffling that Thompson's going to bring to the Yahoo board, indirectly or otherwise. According to Swisher, Yahoo executive vice president Ross Levinsohn will likely become Yahoo's interim CEO – and his executive biography appears picture-perfect so far, Swisher notes.
As for Loeb's champagne, that's not just the result of his successful (two-week-long) campaign against Thompson. Swisher reports that Loeb will likely end up settling his proxy battle with the Yahoo board, which will give Loeb three director seats: One for him, one for Michael Wolf, and one for Harry Wilson. Loeb's fourth board nominee, Jeff Zucker, will remain on the sidelines.
Unfortunately, this likely means that the tech world will have to say goodbye to Loeb's pugnacious letters – at least, the often-humorous, often-scathing and just downright often missives lobbed at the board for its every alleged screw-up.
Board director Fred Amoroso, fresh on the job as of February of this year, is expected to become the new chairman of Yahoo's board.
A firm date hasn't been set for the official announcement of Thompson's departure, but the move could happen as early as Monday. It's also unclear just what Thompson's final compensation will end up being – it stands to reason that any hint of a golden parachute will likely send Yahoo's rank-and-file out into the streets with pitchforks and torches.
For more tech tidbits from David Murphy, follow him on Facebook or Twitter (@thedavidmurphy).
