On Thursday, Agence France-Presse reported that former chief executive of Yahoo!, Terry Semel, has officially left the company— culminating his seven year career with the now “struggling” Internet company.
Semel, who announced his resignation as Yahoo! CEO in June of 2007, had stayed on with the company as a member of the Yahoo! board of directors. Roy Bostock, a fellow board member, is said to be assuming Semel’s position as non-executive chairman.
AFP indicated that on Tuesday, Yahoo! announced it would be eliminating 1,000 employees in an attempt to “revitalize a company that analysts say strayed from its profitable strengths while Semel was at the helm.” Details have not been disclosed as to whether or not Semel’s choice to leave the company now coincided with the pending layoffs.
Still, current CEO Jerry Yang, who took over for Semel back in June, commended the man’s success during his career; AFP mentioned that “Yang credited [Semel] with helping Yahoo nearly triple the number of users to 500 million while creating billions in shareholder wealth.”
Despite company developments over the past year, such as launching Yahoo! SmartAds and its own professional social networking website, Yahoo! faced a pretty rough year financially. The company reported that while 2007 revenues were $1.8 billion— an 8% increase from the previous year— annual net income decreased from $751 million to $660 million.
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