Breaking News: Yahoo’s Thompson to Step Down as CEO (Update: Confirmed)

According to an exclusive by All Things Digital’s Kara Swisher, Yahoo’s current and embattled CEO Scott Thompson will be stepping down in the coming days.

The Yahoo board is in the process of working out a settlement with Ross Levinsohn, who would be the interim CEO. This crisis, which if you can believe it, is only a week old started because of an “error” on Thompspn’s resume that he failed to correct.

I, along with many others have been largely critical of Yahoo and have even called for Yahoo to make the right decision when it came to the handling of this very sensitive issue.  Yes, Thompson stepped down. Was that of his own volition or was he nudged out by higher ups?  Quite possibly Thompson didn’t see any good that could come of staying on as chief.

This week is going to be a critical week for the Silicon Valley giant.  The formal announcement of Thompson’s departure I’m sure will be announced in the coming days. According to what we are hearing, the reason for his departure will be “for personal reasons”.  Give me a freaking break.  Unless, you’ve been living under a rock, we all know what those “personal reasons” are.

So where does Yahoo go from here?  With the installation of the interim CEO, hopefully they can right the ship.  This whole situation has just made Yahoo look absolutely ridiculous.  Its one fumble after another.

Levinsohn has a pretty stellar background and from what we’ve been able to ascertain, his resume is accurate.  He’s just the person they need right now to settle things down.

The Yahoo board has had meetings this morning to finalize a host of other changes. It will be interesting to see how those changes get rolled out, and the effect they will have.

UPDATE: In a press release, Yahoo has confirmed the news.  Simply saying that “Mr. Levinsohn replaces Scott Thompson, former Chief Executive Officer, who has left the Company.”  Yahoo isn’t offering any information on whether Thompson actually stepped down or if he was actually fired.  After a week of pretty much doing nothing, Yahoo is moving quickly to put this whole episode behind them.

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