Yahoo’s Chief Product Officer Blake Irving Calls It Quits

Blake Irving is no longer the chief product officer for Yahoo, Inc. after handing in his resignation following the firing of 2,000 Yahoo employees, many which are expected to come from his department.

According to insiders Irving had been planning to resign before the layoff announcement was made earlier in the week.

Irving’s departure follows Co-found and former CEO Jerry Yang who left the company in the early part of 2012, it was believed that after Yang left more shake-ups would occur under turn around expert and former Paypal runner Scott Thompson.

Also announcing their departure recently was chairman Roy Bostock, one of four board members that will not seek re-election.

The move shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone following the company’s restructuring, many people in the industry clearly believe that Irving doesn’t agree with Scott Thompson’s restructuring plans, criticizing the CEO for laying off thousands of workers with no clear plan in mind. Thompson meanwhile claims that the layoffs will allow Yahoo to focus on its “core divisions” while saving the company $375 million.

Yahoo in the meantime has remained fairly secretive with it’s plans outside of announcing thousands of layoffs and planning to remove various departments from the company’s equation.

It’s still unclear why Scott Thompson decided to fire thousands of Yahoo employees when they had previously talked about selling off Asian assets, selling the company to outside investors or finding a minority partner to help beef up the company’s cash on hand, all of which may have injected new life into the company.