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Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang hosted a lunch for top management yesterday and tried to sell the company's overstuffed ranks of EVPs and SVPs on a mashup with AOL. No one bought it, reports BoomTown's Kara Swisher. "Look, Microsoft would not be my first choice either," one exec told Swisher. "But AOL is not even my third." Another exec said: "I cannot believe they would put our amazing assets with those who we don't really respect, for the most part, and think that's OK." Reportedly, none of the VPs at Yang's luncheon bothered speak up — the cardinal rule at Yahoo these days being not to offend Yahoo's oversensitive founder. But most want him to hurry up and close what's seen as an inevitable deal with Microsoft.

We are tired of all the noise and the angling [of this takeover] and most of us just want something to get done...this is completely distracting for employees and makes it hard to manage the big businesses we all have.