Yahoo brought PayPal cofounder Max Levchin on its board today, but while it gains a well-known Silicon Valley entrepreneur, it loses two other members: The Weather Channel’s David Kenny and Intuit’s Brad Smith.
Yahoo released a statement today announcing the new addition. Other than cofounding PayPal, eBay’s payments arm, Levchin also ran a social company called Slide that Google later acquired and shuttered. Levchin is otherwise on the board of Yelp and is a director for note-taking service Evernote.
Marissa Mayer, the current chief executive of Yahoo, explained, “Max is someone I’ve admired throughout my career for his phenomenal sense for great productions and keen focus on user experiences.”
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This reinforces the idea of Mayer as a product-focused CEO, concentrating Yahoo on what it can build for its customers.
As Levchin enters, however, two other Yahoo board members are stepping down, bringing the total to 11 Yahoo board members. Mayer stated that that both of them had “critical roles in bringing me to Yahoo” and that they both were instrumental in the recent buyback agreement made with Chinese e-commerce company Alibaba. Kenny joined Yahoo’s board in February 2011 and Smith in 2010.
A spokesperson for Intuit said Smith, “decided not to stand for re-election so he could focus on his role leading Intuit along with his ongoing participation in industry groups and organizations like the CEO roundtable.”
Max Levchin photo via Joi/Flickr
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