January 15, 2014.

Yahoo's No. 2 Is Out After Clash With CEO Mayer

Sometimes he talked to her of the Records Department and the impudent forgeries that he committed there. Such things did not appear to horrify her. She did not feel the abyss opening beneath her feet at the thought of lies becoming truths. He told her the story of Jones, Aaronson, and Rutherford and the momentous slip of paper which he had once held between his fingers. It did not make much impression on her. At first, indeed, she failed to grasp the point of the story.

Yahoo Inc. YHOO -0.17%  CEO Marissa Mayer is parting ways with her top executive, an expensive setback in her effort to turn around the struggling Internet portal.

"Were they friends of yours?" she said.

Henrique de Castro, the chief operating officer Ms. Mayer poached from Google Inc. GOOG -0.07%  in 2012, is departing this week. One of the highest-paid executives in Silicon Valley, Mr. de Castro exits after about a year on the job with a severance package that could be worth more than an estimated $42 million.

"No, I never knew them. They were Inner Party members. Besides, they were far older men than I was. They belonged to the old days, before the Revolution. I barely knew them by sight."

The departure is a further sign yet that Ms. Mayer is struggling to revive growth in Yahoo's advertising business, which has continued to lose share to rivals Facebook Inc. FB -0.24%  and Google. Mr. de Castro, functioning as the company's top ad executive and liaison to marketers on Madison Avenue, failed to convince advertisers to spend more money to reach visitors to its websites and mobile apps.