Our friend Kara Swisher of All Things Digital broke the news that Yahoo's CEO Scott Thompson will step down. Effective immediately Ross Levinsohn, the head of Yahoo's media brands will take over as interim CEO.
Fred Amoroso, a new Yahoo director, will be named chairman of Yahoo's board. The five directors on Yahoo's board now will step down immediately, says Swisher, and I thinks that's the best news about this twisted tale.
Today's news comes more than a week after it was discovered Thompson's resume listed a computer science degree, which he never earned. While Thompson will likely cite "personal reasons" when he officially announces the move this is clearly a victory for Dan Loeb, the shareholder who discovered Thompson's fake computer science degree.
I have a ton of respect for Levinsohn, but if Yahoo! decides to go for another outsider I would think someone with Thompson's legitimate credentials with a bit of social media expertise thrown in would be perfect. There must be someone exciting from FB, or Twitter, or LinkedIN, or GOOG, or AAPL, or MSFT that would now still take the job. Not Zuck, or Jack, or Balmer, nobody on the founder level, but there must be someone interesting, smart, with vision at those places and that's where I'd go.
If they did that you'd potentially see a 20 to 30 percent increase within a quarter.
If they don't do it, then piecemeal it's probably fairly priced.
