After nearly four months, Yahoo has finally picked its new CEO. The web content company announced today that former PayPal president Scott Thompson will take over the CEO role. Officially Thompson will begin working at Yahoo on Monday. He replaces Carol Bartz in that position, who was famously, or rather infamously, fired over the phone by Yahoo"s board of directors in September.
Thompson became president of PayPal in early 2008 and his departure from the company to become Yahoo"s new CEO seems to have taken some people at PayPal by surprise. In an internal memo to PayPal employees posted on AllThingsD.com, John Donahoe, the CEO of PayPal"s parent company eBay, said that Thompson informed him of his new Yahoo job on Tuesday afternoon. He added, " ... I’m sure Scott’s decision is a shock to many of you, as it was to me." Donahoe will be the interim president of PayPal until a replacement is found.
Thompson comes into his new gig on the heels of rumors that Yahoo is trying to sell off at least part of its business. Microsoft is among the many different companies that have been rumored for months to purchase at least a portion of Yahoo but so far there has not been any deals made.