remember that this is a commercial illustration.. its main purpose is not to be innovative but to illustrate a subject so symbolically that you could guess what the article is about without even glancing at the headline.
Which is EXACTLY what this illo does, and it does it well.
That's why in this case, the obvious choice of a wide-known metaphor works perfectly (although it might seem cliche to many.)
the logos are deffo not handpixeled (the yahoo logo itself has something around 100 colors, i smell photoshop's transform function). thus this is not pixelart as definded by pixeljoint.
also: big fish eating small fish as metaphor for a takeover - nothing too interesting from the creative point of view.