Bangalore: Scott Thompson former CTO at eBay’s PayPal, has been added to Yahoo’s growing list of quickly-changing CEOs, that includes Terry Semel (who was a movie magnate), Jerry Yang (Yahoo’s founder), and Carol Bartz (former chairman, president, and CEO at AutoDesk).

Thompson has rich technological experience with the posts of executive VP of technology at Inovant (Visa's tech subsidiary) , and CIO at Barclays Global Investors, as trophies on his proverbial wall. Moreover, PayPal’s revenue doubled within a span of 4 years under his leadership. Thompson, however, has no previous experience in the fields of online content, or advertising, which happen to be Yahoo’s main bread-winning enterprises.

Although September,2011 saw Bartz fired (as a result of decreased revenues in comparison with Yahoo!’s competitors Google and Facebook), she imposed cost-cutting strategies that made Yahoo more profitable by earning $1.1 billion up from $660 million in 2007, (making its total revenue $7 billion) according to Wall Street Journal. Yahoo’s revenue, however, shrunk to about $5 billion last year. Google's revenue in the same period (2007-last year) reportedly soared from $17 billion to $38 billion. Yahoo’s board was said to be considering selling part or whole of the company since Bartz’s dismissal.

In the midst of these tumultuous times, however, Thompson views the news, communication, and web-based software (that users come to Yahoo for) as data that will be exploitable, and can be used to innovate and compete “…in ways the world hasn’t seen yet”, as said to analysts in a conference call with Yahoo’s chairman, Roy Bostock .

The Wall Street Journal reported Stifel Nicolaus, the banking firm, saying “Shares may fade a bit today if investors believe that the hiring of Thompson may indicate that the evaluation of strategic alternatives is not going forward. We believe that would be a buying opportunity. We believe the process continues, now with Thompson as a guiding force. This hiring may be a signal that a private equity injection into Yahoo! is less likely now — we believe that with a solid CEO like Thompson, a private-equity led investment is less necessary.”
However, “…by selecting Mr. Thompson, Yahoo! is explicitly pursuing a Growth strategy, whereas we believe a Value strategy might be more appropriate.” said Mark Mahaney, an analyst from Citi.