Flickr Co-Founders Are Latest Executives To Leave Yahoo

Yahoo Inc.said the co-founders of its online photo-sharing Web site Flickr are leaving, marking two more executive departures from the troubled Internet company.

• Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield – the husband-and-wife co-founders of Flickr – are leaving, Yahoo spokeswoman Diana Wong said in an email. Fake’s last day at Yahoo was June 13, while Butterfield’s final day will be July 12.
• Fake and Butterfield sold the photo-sharing company – which lets people upload digital pictures and share them on the Web – to Yahoo in 2005. In April, Yahoo added video technology to the site, allowing users to share short video clips.
• Kakul Srivastava, currently senior director of product management for Flickr, will replace Butterfield as general manager, Yahoo spokesperson Terrell Karlsten said. Sara Wood, who recently joined the Flickr team, will serve as senior director of product management, Karlsten added.
• Fake and Butterfield join a list of several high-profile executives who have left Yahoo over the past several months. Jeff Weiner, executive vice president of the company’s network division, and Usama Fayyad, executive vice president of research and strategic data solutions, have recently left. Additionally, Jeremy Zawodny, a technology evangelist, said on his blog last week that he intends to leave after eight and a half years at the company.
• The departures come at a tumultuous time for the Internet company looking to move forward from a failed attempt by Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) to take over Yahoo and the possibility that activist investor Carl Icahn may follow through with his attempt to oust Yahoo’s entire board at the company’s Aug. 1 annual meeting. Yahoo also recently announced an advertising pact with larger rival Google Inc. (GOOG).
• Amid the departures, David Karnstedt, Yahoo’s senior vice president for North American sales, said Tuesday at a William Blair conference that the company continues to hire aggressively, refuting blog speculation that it had slowed its hiring efforts.
• Shares of Yahoo were recently down 31 cents, or 1.3%, at $22.94.