This is the equivalent of VC's throwing out the companies founders and replacing them with someone else that the VC wants to run the company.

I think I've written the same comment about 4 times now, but Starboard is a PE firm that knows what they are doing here. Nothing in life is certain, but I doubt they would go activist in this way if they didn't have a very strong feeling that they would get the required votes.

Their position is that under Mayer all Yahoo has done is lose money, with their BABA position inflating their earnings to make YHOO look profitable.

I think most people believe that YHOO is now a walking zombie and will go bankrupt given enough time, Starboard is attempting to short circuit this and force a sale of the profitable assets, essentially returning money to shareholders before the company goes under.

I mean anyone want to try to make the point that Yahoo as it exists can turn around? I mean they've already tried layoffs, acquisitions, closing unprofitable business units. What's left to try?

That's kind of shitty if you are an employee but to be fair, I haven't heard anyone put out a believable plan that turns YHOO profitable and its hard to ask existing share holders to essentially pay for people to have jobs until their entire equity is gone.