Except now, the climate is much worse. The crumbling economy is discouraging advertisers from spending online, particularly on the billboard-style display ads that are Yahoo's bread and butter. Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Yahoo, already adjusting, announced it would lay off 10 percent of its work force after profits plunged 64 percent in the most recent quarter. Yahoo Chief Executive Jerry Yang may have wrung the last drops of shareholder goodwill by betting on a Google deal instead of taking Microsoft's offer. To avoid getting pushed out by Yahoo's board, which now includes activist investor Carl Icahn, Yang is under intense pressure to boost the company's bottom line.