Stefan Mileschin

Yahoo former CEO Ross Levinsohn, the man who lost the top job to Google executive Marissa Mayer has quit.

According to a Yahoo filing, Levinsohn has cleaned out his desk and his last day was yesterday.

But it will not necessarily be a sad day for Levinsohn. He will go with the severance payments outlined in his 2010 offer letter and 2011 severance agreement, plus 67,000 restricted stock units and 250,000 stock options. This lot has a value of about $5 million.

His earlier agreements call for $1.4 million in salary and target bonus, plus 175,000 restricted stock units or RSUs, and an option to buy 400,000 shares.

Before joining Yahoo as executive vice president, Americas, in 2010, Levinsohn had been a managing director of investment firm Fuse Capital.

All Things Digital said that Levinsohn, who took over as interim CEO in the wake of the ouster of Scott Thompson earlier this year, that put him in charge of key Yahoo businesses, including its media and advertising sales divisions. and running the Americas unit of the Silicon Valley Internet giant. When he applied for the top job he was unsuccessful and lost it to Mayer.

While Mayer might have benefited from his approach, she wants to save Yahoo by coming up with new technology. Levinsohn was more in favour of the business person approach which set the two at odds.

So far there is no news what Levinsohn will do next. My guess is that after cashing his severance cheque he will be headed somewhere hot. Apparently he is well liked in the content industry and so should score a job quite quickly.

http://news.techeye.net/internet/for...t-the-building