After Only 15 Months, Marissa Mayer Fired Her First Major Hire

As we previously reported, Yahoo COO Henrique De Castro is leaving Yahoo, effective Jan. 16, according to Yahoo.

Now, in an email to Yahoo employees from CEO Marissa Mayer, posted in full by Re/Code's Kara Swisher, Mayer makes it clear that she's firing Castro.

Here's the key sentence from Mayer's email about it:

During my own reflection, I made the difficult decision that our COO, Henrique de Castro, should leave the company. I appreciate Henrique's contributions and wish him the best in his future endeavors.

Mayer then goes on to detail other reorg changes she is making.

Effective today, we will restructure the leadership of the operating organization as follows:

- Dawn Airey, John Devine, Ned Brody, and Rose Tsou will report directly to me.

- I've asked Kathy Savitt to lead our media and editorial functions.

- Several functions in the COO org align well with product initiatives in Mike Kern's Homepages & Verticals group and will report there moving forward.

De Castro was the first major hire by Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer. He joined Yahoo in October 2012, lured from Google with a four-year $62 million pay package.

He was at Yahoo for only a little over a year, but it looks like he's still going to collect a big golden umbrella, including a $20 million restricted stock bonus.

We reached out to Yahoo to ask for further comment and will update if we hear back.