Voting with their feet? File this one under 'stampede'

If Jerry Yang has been saving up a "band of brothers" moment with his troops, this is it.

The departure of Flickr's co-founders, the husband and wife team of Caterina Fake and Stewart Butterfield, follows the earlier resignation of Jeff Weiner, who was executive vice president of Yahoo's network division.

Last week, it was Usama Fayyad , chief data officer and EVP of research and strategic data solutions, as well as the announcement by Yahoo's high-profile developer Jeremy Zawodny that he's leaving the company as well.

Flickr's one of Yahoo's best properties. I suppose there's more than enough institutional memory within the group to withstand the resignation of its founders. But the timing comes at a really bad time for Yang and Yahoo. The company just finished up an unsatisfying four month on-again, off-again dalliance with Microsoft with Carl Icahn and the Wall Street crowd barking from the sidelines. It's too soon to predict whether a current deal with Google will work, but the pressure is on Yang to prove he knows better than the critics.

Even before the latest departures, AllThingsD co-impressario Kara Swisher asked the $64,000 question about Yang's tenure.

It's the obvious question, of course, to ask whether the co-founder of Yahoo has what it takes to manage the company through what will doubtlessly be a very difficult year.

It's no longer an academic question. Right now, Yang needs to demonstrate he's made of the stern stuff one associates with successful CEOs. Rightly or not, Yahoo is giving off signs of being in distress. It may be more image than reality. But in this business, image really does matter.

Jerry, is anybody home? With all due respect.

[DKrudop]

[Penguinisto]

You'll have to speak up. :)

[Sugiarto Setiabudi]

Everything gonna be allright !!

yahoo will survive and to be the best

[WilliamBanzai7]

Mr Yang is of Asian/Chinese descent. Anyone who is familiar with this cultural milieu, knows the importance of saving ?face?.
At this point Yang?s face is being mopped allover town. He probably spends most of his time sulking about this. Don?t under estimate the impact of this seemingly trivial tidbit on the motivations of this man. He does not give a tinkers cuss about what his shareholders think. It is all about face. Microsoft surely know this and are best served by waiting quietly with arms open as Yang self destructs.

[T-Guy]

I am of Asian descent. Anyone who is familiar with this cultural milieu, knows that I wouldn't spend my time sulking about something like "saving face". Unfortunately, I don't underestimate the impact of people who are quick to make assumptions, make uneducated assumptions and proclamations, and don't know or acknowledge what they don't know. There are just too many of them.

[Seaspray0]

It took years of a crumbling foundation for yahoo to reach the state it's in. This just didn't happen overnight. Am I surprised the buzzards are gathering over yahoo? Not in the least. It certainly was a wake up call for Mr Yang who still seems to think everything is "A-OK". Having his staff leave like this will give the shareholders even more reason to pull the plug on the current board with Mr. Yang. I don't think their employee retention poison pill can save him now.

[The_Decider]

Crumbling? They have been beating market forecasts and recently just fought off the deadly virus known as Microsoft. Let these idiots who were likely looking for a quick payday leave. They won't be missed.

[keeperplanet]

C'on Coop. How bout a little universal respect for the company that started it all. Yang, despite his shortcomings deserves better treatment from all of you so called heavy-topic-research-oriented-iFollow-must-be-like-every-body-else crowd. I thought you were better than that. The truth is Yang and Yahoo are under a planned attack, not unlike the ole smash and grab theft technique. If you want Icahn controlling Yahoo, and you want Microsoft ending up buying the pieces they want, and if you want Yahoo to go away, just keep on truckin' dude. Quite frankly, I like Yahoo--a lot. Have you tried their email? Unlimited storage? Small Business E-commerce services (where you or anyone can open a store in a few hours for so little money it is scary: http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/ecommerce/features.php).

Quite frankly, you and your Cnet troupe, especially Dan Farber) have not done your homework. You are just pinging back some kind of populist tripe. Why don't you do your homework, give us the numbers, honest facts, compared to perhaps Microsoft's stellar record of incredible internet butchery over the last ten years. If Microsoft gets hold of Yahoo, you can kiss the company goodbye and it is pretty obvious from MICROSOFT's trail of failed management efforts that it won't take long. (don't make me give you a list).

[The_Decider]

Yahoo is doing nothing but slowly growing. Executives are dead weight. More than likely most of these people leaving are just upset that Yahoo didn't commit suicide for greedy, shortsighted short shareholders. Executives are a dime a dozen. This is an opportunity to promote people that actually care about Yahoo over the long term.