2006 is a bad year to be a current or former senior CNET exec
December 6, 2006This is turning out to be a bad year if you’re a senior CNET executive, or a former senior CNET executive. First the CEO Shelby Bonnie resigns, along with a slew of other top execs. Mostly to accept blame for their role in a stock options scandal at CNET. Now the former President at CNET, Dan Rosensweig, is being eased out of his COO role at Yahoo.
I never really worked with Dan while I was at CNET, he always seemed a nice enough guy the few times I ran into him. But of course I only saw the public personna, I have no idea what he’s really like to work for or with. He can’t be all bad, to have survived five years at Yahoo.
I wonder why he’s being made one of the fall guys. I suppose when you’re the Chief Operations Officer and the company has failed to execute on key operational initiatives like their oft-delayed advertising platform, that looks bad for you. At least they’re doing an orderly transition, Dan’s not leaving for another 3 months.
I wouldn’t feel too sorry for Dan, I’m certain he’ll land on his feet somewhere. And I’m equally certain that if he wants he probably doesn’t need to work anymore, given the wealth he must have accumulated over five years as second-in-command at Yahoo. Plus all that cash and stock he probably got when CNET bought ZDNet (that’s how he came to be at CNET all those years ago, was thru the ZDNet acquisition).