The company's future and Semel's legacy now rest on the shoulders of a woman named Sue Decker, who's in charge of advertising and publishing and reports directly to Semel. To put it simply, she now has the responsibility of bringing boatloads of revenue to Yahoo.

Previously the company's chief financial officer, she is described by one recent Yahoo renegade as the "voice of the analytical side of Yahoo screaming out to take control." Decker is also widely regarded as Semel's heir apparent, although the company has taken no position on the matter.

Decker landed in a sweeter position than anyone after December's reorganization, which she helped plan. Out the door went the chief operating officer along with Lloyd Braun, a former TV executive whom Semel hired to bring Hollywood-style content to Yahoo, the results of which were mixed at best: The flashiest product of Braun's Hollywood group is The 9, a quick video countdown of funny things whose quality is best left for viewers to judge.

Braun's detractors say he was too Hollywood abrasive for Yahoo's consenus culture. His supporters say Braun never got the support he needed: not enough money, not enough engineering time, not enough help from Semel when traditional Yahoos resisted his push for change.

The reorganization came on the heels of a Yahoo executive's memo, now famously known in Silicon Valley as the Peanut Butter Manifesto, that called for drastic action in the face of dismal Yahoo performance and a tendency to spread talent and resources over too many projects, like a dab of peanut butter over a lot of toast.

The shakeup didn't do much to pacify critics, however. So Semel announced a new strategic plan: Focus on customers. But little sense of urgency accompanied that plan. After Braun left the Hollywood group at Yahoo's Santa Monica offices, the place remained leaderless for four months before a Semel protégé, Jeff Weiner, was put in charge.