Yahoo’s previous turnaround attempts have flopped under three different leaders with dramatically different backgrounds-former movie mogul Terry Semel, beloved Yahoo co-founder Jerry Yang and profanity-spewing Silicon Valley veteran Carol Bartz.

Now, the struggling Internet company is making yet another unorthodox choice with last week’s announcement that it has lured Scott Thompson away from a lower-profile job running eBay’s thriving PayPal service to step into the pressure-packed position as Yahoo’s fourth CEO in less than five years.