<![CDATA[Gawker: valleywag, eric boyd]]> http://tags.gawker.com/assets/base/img/thumbs140x140/gawker.com.png <![CDATA[Gawker: valleywag, eric boyd]]> http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/ericboyd http://gawker.com/tag/valleywag/ericboyd <![CDATA[Report: Yahoo search scientist Qi Lu will leave next]]> Now that Google is to run the most profitable parts of Yahoo search advertising, what's a Yahoo search scientist like Qi Lu to do? Leave the company. Sources tell BoomTown that Lu is also mapping his way out of Big Purple, following following the Flickr founders, Usama Fayyad and Jeff Weiner. It's a big blow. One former Yahoo employee who yawned over Fayyad's departure tells us: "Now Qi Lu, on the other hand. People would go to war for him."

We've heard Lu's been frustrated at Yahoo for some time now. Assigned to Project Apex, the advertising dashboard Yahoo wants investors to believe will save the company — Lu heavily recruited fellow Yahoo Eric Boyd to work on the effort. Didn't happen. Instead, in April, Boyd turned him down and joined ad startup Mochi Media. A blackjack star, Boyd has a knack for making good bets: Since then, the word has been that Apex is underfunded and undermanned — short on everything but flashy PowerPoint presentations.

]]> http://gawker.com/index.php?op=postcommentfeed&postId=5017906&view=rss&microfeed=true <![CDATA[Former MIT blackjack whiz Eric Boyd cashes in his chips at Yahoo]]> eric_boyd_kate_bosworth.jpgYahoo's VP of platform engineering Eric Boyd is leaving Yahoo after ten years at the company, according to a source. Boyd, pictured here with friend Kyle and actress Kate Bosworth at the premiere of card-sharp thriller 21, made a name for himself as a member of the MIT card-counting team the current box office smash is based on. At Yahoo, he helped developed the user database, mail systems, My Yahoo portal, and most recently, the company's OpenSocial project, reporting to do-little EVP Ash Patel. What might have convinced him to go? I mean, besides the whole Microsoft thing?

The prospect of working on Apex, the promised "one ad platform to unite them all" which is mired in managerial turf wars, under Boyd's former mentor, rising tech star Qi Lu. Where's he going to? Mochi Media, an Accel Partners-backed startup which inserts online ads in Flash games.

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