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A source close to Yahoo, closer yet to its Media Group, tells us that the emotional strain of February's layoffs, and more expected to come if the Microsoft deal goes through, has Yahoos in the grip of fear. "The big push inside of Yahoo right now is for everyone to justify what they're doing for a living," our source tells us.

It didn't use to matter who specifically was responsible for delivering. Now everyone's grabbing on to things that are significant to say why they're there. Rehashing job descriptions. There's lots of internal jockeying and posturing. No one wants to be the person without a seat when the music ends.

Some of that sounds like the way normal businesses run — imagine that, people collecting paychecks and then having to deliver work! But our source tell us it sometimes leads to people avoiding nuts-and-bolts operations duties in favor of more visible projects, and sometimes pushes good people out of the company. That's what happened to Yahoo Media Group's former head of marketing, Karin Timpone, he said.

Right now, the people who are in the most senior positions are the most nervous because of what happened to Karin Timpone. Generally acknowledged as strong asset, she went into too much strategy and didn't have a definite role. So when it came time to define things, she got let go. The perception was that she was redundant.