Yahoo! hires! top! Googler! to! revamp! operations!
Marissa Mayer gets her man – for a price
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On her first day back in the office after just two weeks of maternity leave, Yahoo! CEO Marisa Mayer has announced that she's wooed a senior Google employee to join her management team.
Henrique de Castro, currently Google's president of Global Media, Mobile & Platforms, will join Yahoo! in January as chief operating officer – unless the Chocolate Factory breaks out its lawyers. He's the first senior Google staff member to be lured to Yahoo! after Mayer left her position there to take the helm of the troubled portal.
"Henrique is an incredibly accomplished and rigorous business leader, and I'm personally excited to have him join Yahoo!'s strong leadership team," said Mayer in a statement. "His operational experience in Internet advertising and his proven success in structuring and scaling global organizations make him the perfect fit for Yahoo! as we propel the business to its next phase of growth."
Getting de Castro onside is, however, expensive. He's costing Yahoo! $600,000 a year in basic salary, with a bonus scheme that could see him get an extra $540,000 depending upon performance. Yahoo! is also handing over a million-dollar signing bonus and at least $18m in share options – although how long those will hold their value is in doubt.
In return, de Castro is expected to do for Yahoo! what he did at Google, where he masterminded increasing Google's display advertising revenue to the point where it outpaced all of the competition. Yahoo! really needs to make itself more of a paying proposition.
"The combination of Yahoo!'s unique properties with high quality content, its renewed focus on outstanding user experience and its massive reach bring tremendous value to users, advertisers and partners," said de Castro. "This is a pivotal point in Yahoo!'s history, and I believe strongly in the opportunity ahead. I can't wait to join Marissa and the team and get started."
There is, however, one small problem to solve before he can get started. Because de Castro is Portuguese by birth, Yahoo! will have to sort him out with a visa before he can work for Yahoo! in the US. In the meantime he'll be working out of Yahoo!'s offices in the UK. ®
COMMENTS
Re: > Getting! de! Castro! onside! is!, however!, expensive!.
The one thing I never like about these big hires is it's almost never the big hire that actually does the work. "We hired XXX manager based on the good work he did at XXX company" when in fact it was the people far lower down the ladder than him who did the hard work, and he just claimed the glory.
Hell I've seen it where I work, Manager A calls a meeting of the minds of the normal coders, we all pitch ideas most of them crappy but a few gems. A few weeks later in a team meeting "We had a team meeting and here's what I came up with" to share with the rest of the team, note how it starts with a we and turns to an I.
After the rest of the team improves on it, he takes it to a managers meeting where it's almost entirely I while the ideais based on positive feedback from the team. By now the moment it gets to a manager who can do something the only one who gets any recognition for it will be the one who called the meeting, not the one who did the work.
Totally not bitter or anything here btw.
> Getting de Castro onside is, however, expensive.
$600k salary and a $1m hello doesn't seem all that ludicrous, at least given his apparent track record for extracting cash. First result googling "silicon valley salaries 2012" quotes average salary for engineer with 7-9 years experience as $132k, and clearly Ms Mayer rates him rather more highly.
And at the awesome elevation of a management team the air is rarified and the head gets giddy - the current CEO of Nokia received $7.9m "compensation" for 2011 (including $1m salary) plus a $6.2m hello. Much bigger numbers - but of course Ms Mayer isn't is expecting Mr de Castro to perform at the same level as that!
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