The majority of his pay is tied to company performance and doesn't seem unreasonable at all. "First and foremost, Yahoo's overall revenue suffered, dropping fr

The majority of his pay is tied to company performance and doesn't seem unreasonable at all. "First and foremost, Yahoo's overall revenue suffered, dropping from $1.601 billion (U.S.) in Q2 of 2010 to $1.229 billion in Q2 of 2011 – a 23 percent drop." This person will be largely responsible for helping prevent the company from losing $400MUSD a year in revenue. If he can do that, well worth the performance package. But ideally they will want to increase profitability, not just top line sales. "Company income actually increased. Q2 income showed a 9 percent increase, having risen to $191 million from last year's $175 million. Net earnings are up 11 percent, while net earnings per share are up 18 percent. All of the above can be blamed on lower operating expenses, which decreased from $953 million to $885 million." Sales aside, operations is important for growing Yahoo profitability. This person will be COO entirely responsible for operations. I bet his mission will be to reduce operating expenses. If he can save them another $100M in cost a year for a $60M package (likely to be paid out over 4-5 years) thats a good deal. Hiring programmers without efficient operations is truly a waste of money.