• Former Yahoo SVP David Ku Joins Microsoft As Corporate VP Of New Initiatives

    Thursday, October 28th, 2010

    Jason Kincaid currently works as a writer at TechCrunch. He grew up in Danville, California and later relocated to UCLA in Los Angeles, California, where he studied biology with a minor in ‘Society and Genetics’. You can reach him at jkincaidtc@gmail.com (he has other addresses too, so don’t worry if you have a different one). → Learn More

    Last month, Yahoo SVP David Ku, who headed the company’s advertising products group, left the company. Yahoo has been hemorrhaging talent lately — including some high ranking executives — and Ku was an especially big loss because he’s been with the company since 2002. Now we’ve confirmed Ku’s next move: he’s joining Microsoft as Corporate Vice President, Online Services Division New Initiatives, effective October 29th, 2010.

    We initially heard that Ku would be working directly on Bing (which is part of Microsoft’s’ Online Services Division) but a Microsoft spokesperson tell us that he’ll be involved with a range of initiatives across the division.

    In addition to advertising experience, Ku has quite a bit of product experience as well: he was Yahoo’s VP Engineering, Search from April 2002 until December 2005. According to his LinkedIn profile, this included running Yahoo’s core search, social search, vertical search (images, video, shopping), Flickr, and more.

    At Yahoo, Ku was replaced by Mark Morrissey who serves as SVP of Ad Platforms and Products (Yahoo consolidated its ad platforms under one exec).

    Person: David Ku
    Companies: Microsoft, Yahoo!

    Responsible for Advertising products and technology at Yahoo!, including display and search advertising, targeting, analytics, exchange, and convergence of search and display advertising.

    Learn more
    Company: Microsoft
    Website: microsoft.com
    Launch Date: April 4, 1974
    IPO: NASDAQ:MSFT

    Microsoft, founded in 1975 by Bill Gates and Paul Allen, is a veteran software company, best known for its Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software. Starting in 1980 Microsoft formed a partnership with IBM allowing Microsoft to sell its software package with the computers IBM manufactured. Microsoft is widely used by professionals worldwide and largely dominates the American corporate market. Additionally, the company has ventured into hardware with consumer products such as the Zune and...

    Learn more
    Company: Yahoo!
    Website: yahoo.com
    Launch Date: January 1, 1994
    IPO: December 4, 1996, Nasdaq:YHOO

    Yahoo was founded in 1994 by Stanford Ph.D. students David Filo and Jerry Yang. It has since evolved into a major internet brand with search, content verticals, and other web services. Yahoo! Inc. (Yahoo!), incorporated in 1995, is a global Internet brand. To users, the Company provides owned and operated online properties and services (Yahoo! Properties, Offerings, or Owned and Operated sites). Yahoo! also extends its marketing platform and access to Internet users beyond Yahoo! Properties through its distribution network...

    Learn more

    Sponsored Ads

    blog comments powered by Disqus

    Sponsored Ads

    Sponsored Ads

    Upcoming Events

    Disrupt SF 2012

    San Francisco, CA