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Internet Start-Ups Lure Execs at Big Tech Firms

After six years at Yahoo Inc., including a stint as vice president of the company’s successful online-shopping business, Rob Solomon wanted a new challenge.

Last year, he was offered the job of chief executive at Internet travel start-up SideStep Inc. Although he would have profited from some stock options had he stayed at Yahoo, he accepted the position starting in January. His cash compensation this year will be a 10th of what he earned at Yahoo, but he says he was happy to trade the big salary and bonus for more responsibility and the potential to get in on the ground floor of a potentially hot company.

"In a smaller environment, you can have a much bigger impact," Mr. Solomon says. At an established public company, the 39-year-old adds, "It’s harder to control your own destiny."

While once workers left other companies to join Yahoo and eBay Inc., many employees are now leaving those firms to work at the newest wave of Web start-ups. The exodus — the largest outflow, some say, since Yahoo and eBay went public in the late 1990s — is a sign of how the two companies have matured. Part of the original groundswell of Internet firms, the two are grappling with the same challenge of how to retain employees that other mature tech companies, such as Microsoft Corp., have faced.

By Mylene Mangalindan

From The Wall Street Journal Online

Full Story: http://www.careerjournal.com/salaryhiring/industries/seniorexecs/20060803-mangalindan.html?cjcontent=mail

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