Carol Bartz

Yahoo Inc., looking to compete with Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. for eyeballs and advertising dollars, offered a sneak peek of upcoming products at its annual runway event. The struggling Internet giant is pressing forward even as it faces an uncertain future. In a prolonged financial funk, Yahoo fired its beleaguered chief executive, Carol Bartz, in September. Yet its products are still some of the most popular on the Web. And despite all the upheaval, Yahoo is following a product plan it laid out a year ago that emphasizes the growing popularity of tablets and other mobile devices to consume digital content.

Ending an era for one of the Internet's pioneers, Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang has stepped down from the struggling company's board. He also relinquished posts on the boards of Yahoo Japan Corp. and Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., according to a statement from the Sunnyvale, Calif., company. His surprise departure came two weeks after Yahoo hired a new chief executive, Scott Thompson, the former president of EBay Inc.'s PayPal unit. Thompson is charged with helping Yahoo catch up to Google and Facebook, which have outpaced Yahoo in the fight for Web traffic and ad dollars.

Hulu Chief Executive Jason Kilar is on the short list of candidates to take over as head of struggling Internet giant Yahoo. Kilar is among the leading contenders for the chief executive's post, along with Yahoo's interim CEO, Ross Levinsohn, according to a person familiar with the matter who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak publicly about the matter. Yahoo's board has yet to be presented with a list of finalists, according to another person close to the situation who asked not to be named because of the confidentiality of the search process.

Yahoo Inc.'s decision to slash 14% of its workers is the biggest restructuring in the company's history, an analyst said. About 2,000 workers will be laid off, the Sunnyvale, Calif., company said Wednesday. It expects to record a pretax expense of $125 million to $145 million, most of which will come in the second quarter. "It may be the only way CEO [Scott] Thompson can effectively focus on the next generation of Yahoo," Think Equity analyst Ronald Josey said in an research note.

Yahoo will forge its future without Chairman Roy Bostock and three other board members, the struggling Internet company said. Bostock announced the departures Tuesday in a letter to shareholders, describing the moves as part of Yahoo's turnaround efforts. "The board has concluded that in order to accelerate the Company's transformation, the combination of a new Chief Executive Officer with an enhanced team of independent directors would provide Yahoo with the expertise and perspectives necessary to drive innovation and growth going forward," Bostock said in the letter.

On a conference call to introduce herself to Wall Street as Yahoo Inc.'s brash new chief executive in January 2009, Carol Bartz demanded that everyone give the struggling Internet giant "some friggin' breathing room. " On the heels of bungled merger talks with Microsoft Corp., investors weren't thrilled with the surprise choice of an executive with no experience running an Internet company to oversee one of that industry's toughest turnaround challenges. They are even less thrilled now. It's unclear how long they will give Bartz, with 18 months left on her four-year contract, to deliver on promises to boost Yahoo's languishing stock price and sharpen its strategic focus as Yahoo continues to battle rising competition from Facebook Inc. and Google Inc. "The grace period is ending," BGC Financial analyst Colin Gillis said.

He has only been on the job for two months, but Yahoo's new chief executive, Scott Thompson, is already preparing a bold plan to turn around the struggling Internet company. Thompson is weighing a significant restructuring of Yahoo that could include thousands of layoffs, according to technology blog All Things D. The moves, the first major ones from the former PayPal president, could be announced as early as this month, Kara Swisher reported, citing anonymous sources. Yahoo recently hired the Boston Consulting Group to focus on the cuts to its products group.

For years, Yahoo Inc. has been stuck with the kind of cosmic curse that is all too painfully familiar to Scott Thompson, a die-hard Boston Red Sox fan. Thompson, former head of PayPal, has stepped to the plate to become Yahoo's fourth chief executive in less than five years. The Boston native said he's bringing an underdog spirit to the tall task of reigniting innovation and growth at the onetime Internet powerhouse that faces rising competition for advertising dollars from rivals Google Inc. and Facebook.

Yahoo Inc. Chief Executive Carol Bartz was ousted by the company's board Tuesday, bringing an abrupt but not surprising end to a rocky tenure at the struggling Internet search company. Bartz, 62, said in a memo to employees that Yahoo Chairman Roy Bostock fired her over the phone. The Sunnyvale, Calif., company's chief financial officer, Tim Morse, was named interim chief executive. "She was very highly compensated for a CEO who had declining revenue growth every single quarter," said Colin Gillis, a technology analyst at BGC Partners.

Yahoo is once again Silicon Valley's favorite punch line. Hearing the news that the struggling Internet company had fired Carol Bartz, comedian Andy Borowitz joked on Twitter: "The CEO of Yahoo just resigned. I had never heard of her so I Googled her. " But few investors are laughing about the straits in which the once-influential Internet company finds itself. Firing Bartz without naming a permanent successor signaled that the board may be seriously weighing selling all or parts of the company.