SAN FRANCISCO — Yahoo Inc. executives are headed for the door as the struggling Internet pioneer prepares for a major reorganization while fending off a contentious proxy fight that could cost co-founder Jerry Yang his job as chief executive.
The brain drain accelerated as a potential buyout by Microsoft Corp. faded and resignation settled in that the Sunnyvale, Calif., company's fortunes would be tied to new ad partner Google Inc.
After recent high-level departures, executives Qi Lu and Vish Makhijani are also leaving, three people familiar with the situation said Thursday.
A third executive, Brad Garlinghouse, is considering alternatives, including posts with venture capital and private equity firms, the people said. As senior vice president for communications and communities, he is responsible for Yahoo Mail and other key products.
A Yahoo spokeswoman declined to comment. The company released a statement saying it had a "deep and talented management team across all areas of the company."
Executives are leaving now that the Microsoft deal is history along with any hope of a stock surge or buyout package.
The exodus has triggered yet another reorganization of Yahoo, this time putting all product groups under one umbrella. Hillary Schneider, executive vice president for global partner solutions, will have a major role in a reorganized Yahoo, details of which could be announced as early as next week, the people familiar with the situation said.
Yahoo shares fell 18 cents Thursday to $22.73.
Lu's departure had been expected. As executive vice president of the search and advertising technology group, he oversaw engineering efforts for the company's search engine and search advertising technology. He is moving to China, the people said.
They said Makhijani was leaving to head the Bay Area operations of Russia's leading search engine, Yandex. He and Garlinghouse both reported to Executive Vice President Jeff Weiner, who recently announced his departure. Weiner, who headed the network division, will split his time between two Silicon Valley venture capital firms.
Garlinghouse is well known in Internet business circles for his 2006 memo, the Peanut Butter Manifesto, which sounded the alarm about Yahoo's sluggish performance.
The pending departures were first reported by blogs TechCrunch and Boomtown.
